IMMORTALITY 
*A  ^RATIONAL 

FAITH  -m-m* 


WILLIAM  CHESTER 


■•win 


*8*CAUF»g! 


IMMORTALITY      A 
RATIONAL  FAITH 


Immortality   a 
Rational  Faith 


The  Predictions  of  Science, 
Philosophy  and  Religion 
on     a     Future    L  ife 

By 
WILLIAM  CHESTER 


w 


Former  Co-pastor  of  Phillips  (Madison  Avenue)  Presbyterian  Church, 
New  York  City,  and  Former  Pastor  of  Immanuel  Pres- 
byterian Church,  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin. 


99  T*»  \ 

I  XJNIVSHSTTT  1 


Chicago       New  York       Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London    and    Edinburgh 


c<r*f 


Copyright,   1903,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

{October) 


IH  c  C 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  63  Washington  Street 
Toronto:  27  Richmond  Street,  W 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    30   St.   Mary  Street 


To 

Ma  totfe 

in 

affectionate  appreciation  of  her  constant  inspiration. 


8ri  ^  aydizr)   tic  rob  Oeob  hari,  kai  6  ayaizwv^ 
kfc  too  Oeob  yeyiwyrat,  Kai  yivwaket  rov  Seov. 


Contents 

I.  Introduction:  Method:  the  Com- 
prehensive Cumulative  Pre- 
diction      9 

II.  The  Predictions  of  Science     .     .     25 

HI.  The  Predictions  of  Philosophy   .     87 

IV.  The  Predictions  of  Religion  .     .133 

V.  Conditions  of  Life  after  Death  .  169 


Introductory:  Method:  the  Com- 
prehensive   Cumulative   Prediction 


INTRODUCTORY :  METHOD  :  THE  COMPRE- 
HENSIVE CUMULATIVE  PREDICTION 

The  only  absolute  certainty  in  this  life  is 
that  each  individual  must  die,  and  that 
at  any  moment.  The  one  question,  there- 
fore, of  first  and  transcendent  importance 
is, — "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 
All  other  questions  seem  secondary  to, 
or  dependent  upon  this  one.  Neglect  or 
evade  this  problem  as  men  will,  yet  the 
deaths  of  beloved  ones  and  one's  own 
steadily  approaching  crisis  force  home  the 
question  sooner  or  later  to  every  heart. 
Fortunately,  the  majority  are  born  with 
the  tendency  of  taking  immortality  for 
granted.  The  readiness  with  which  the 
child  accepts  instantly  the  teaching  that  the 
dead  are  only  translated,  is  one  of  the  many 
proofs  that  this  truth  is  a  soul  instinct, 
God's  self-impression  on  the  human  spirit. 
Some,  happily,  go  through  life  with  this  un- 
disturbed childlike  faith,  and  marvel  that 

ii 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

five  thousand  volumes  have  been  written  in 
earnest  debate  over  what  seems  to  them 
a  certainty.  Yet  comparatively  few,  how- 
ever, reach  the  period  of  earnest  reflection, 
and  especially  come  in  touch  with  modern 
scientific  and  rationalistic  thought,  without 
being  rudely  shocked  out  of  this  childhood's 
faith,  and  awakened  to  the  profound  diffi- 
culties and  depths  of  the  problem.  To 
intelligently  conceive  how  spirit  can  sur- 
vive the  separation  from  the  body,  how  a 
brainless  mind  can  think,  how  a  senseless 
soul  can  retain  its  identity,  seems  an  im- 
possibility. To  notice  that  the  slightest 
brain  injury  here  instantly  clouds  the 
reason  and  changes  the  character,  and  then 
to  be  told  that  total  brain  dissolution  will 
leave  mind  and  character  whole  and  free, 
seems  preposterous.  To  behold  all  that  we 
can  see  of  an  individual  perish  before  our 
eyes,  turning  back  to  dust,  and  then  to 
be  told  that  there  is  something  that  we  do 
not  see  that  lives  on,  seems  too  great  an  as- 
sumption, especially  when  no  one  can  fully 
satisfy  us  as  to  how,  where  and  what  that 
something  is.  Add  to  this  the  absolute  un- 
broken silence,  apart  from  revelation,  of  all 
the  myriads  of  the  dead,  through  all  the  past 

12 


Introductory- 
ages  ;  the  impossibility,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  of  any  scientific  proof  or 
demonstration,  and  the  positive  assertions 
of  eminent  materialists  that  the  brain  both 
produces  and  ends  all  consciousness, — and 
one  awakens  to  the  stupendous  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  any  intelligent  conception  of  the 
possibility  of  future  existence.  It  is  folly 
either  to  deny  or  minimize  these  difficulties, 
for  since  we  must  experience  the  inevitable, 
we  should  test  the  bridge  before  crossing, 
and  know  just  what  the  situation  is  and 
just  where  confidence  must  rest. 

We  are  surprised,  however,  to  be  met  on 
the  very  threshold  with  some  startling 
denials.  The  quite  evident  indifference 
every  day  of  humanity  in  general  to  this 
whole  subject  shows,  we  are  told,  that  men 
really  care  but  little  about  it,  and  moreover 
that  the  majority  of  the  race  would  prob- 
ably prefer  annihilation  to  continued  exist- 
ence were  they  given  the  choice.  But 
when  this  indifference  to  immortality  is 
analyzed,  it  is  discovered  that  men  are 
apparently  indifferent,  not  because  they  are 
not  profoundly  interested  in  the  most  sol- 
emn and  portentous  event  of  all  existence, 
but  because   they  secretly   feel  that  it  is 

13 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

impossible  to  find  out  anything  definite  and 
positive  about  it.  The  indifference  is  often 
a  mere  form  of  intellectual  despair.  Im- 
mortality, obviously,  cannot  be  proved. 
Not  even  seeing  a  man  die  and  live  again 
would  be  an  irrefutable  demonstration ;  for 
the  fact  of  another's  surviving  death  does 
not  necessarily  imply  one's  own  survival. 
Personal  experience  alone  can  give  absolute 
proof.  Saddened  by  the  self-delusion  or 
fraud  of  all  systems  claiming  to  communi- 
cate with  the  dead,  men  recoil  into  this 
state  of  apparent  apathy,  saying  to  them- 
selves,— It  is  impossible  to  know  anything 
definite.  The  only  true  method  is  for  each 
to  wait  his  turn  and  thus  find  out.  As 
to  the  other  objection  of  humanity's  not 
desiring  immortality,  even  were  this  true 
the  vital  importance  of  the  problem  would 
be  undiminished;  for  the  question  is  not 
what  men  wish,  but  what  is  true,  not  one's 
inclination  but  the  facts  of  the  case.  Yet 
while  it  is  true  that  a  small  minority  under 
weariness,  guilt  and  uncertainty  might  wel- 
come annihilation,  yet  so  long  as  love  of 
life  is  a  primary  instinct,  so  long  as  love  for 
God  and  humanity  exists  in  the  human 
breast  and  so  long  as  affection  remains  the 

H 


Introductory 

supreme  quality  in  the  entire  universe,  so 
long  will  men  shudder  at  blank  extinction 
and  crave  life's  fulfillment  hereafter. 

But  there  are  still  others  who  tell  us  that 
this  desire  for  immortality  is  ignoble,  being 
but  disguised  selfishness,  and  that  it  is 
far  nobler  to  enter  into  the  higher,  perfect 
altruism  of  George  Eliot,  seeking  to  survive 
only  in  "  the  choir  invisible  "  of  an  earthly 
immortality  of  a  beneficent  influence  that 
will  linger  on  to  help  the  race,  rather  than 
to  seek  our  own  continued  existence  here- 
after. The  beautiful  lines,  also,  placed  on 
Huxley's  tomb,  at  his  own  request,  are 
held  up  as  the  highest  expression  of  human 
resignation,  far  more  disinterested  than  the 
longing  for  one's  own  survival : 

"  And  if  there  be  no  meeting  past  the  grave, 
If  all  is  darkness,  silence,  yet  'tis  rest. 
Be  not  afraid,  ye  waiting  hearts  that  weep, 
For  God  still  giveth  His  beloved  sleep, 
And  if  an  endless  sleep,  He  wills,  so  best." 

Yet  let  us  examine  this  intense  longing 
for  immortality.  Do  we  desire  it  only  for 
self,  or  is  it  not  principally  for  self  in  rela- 
tion to  others  ?  Who  would  care  to  be  the 
sole  survivor  in  the  universe  ?    Would  not 

15 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

that  prove  a  curse  instead  of  a  blessing? 
Is  not  the  longing  mingled  with  the  feeling 
that  our  lives  can  be  worth  something  even 
to  God,  and  certainly  to  those  that  have 
loved  us,  and  that  we  can  claim  their 
continued  affection  hereafter ;  and,  above 
all,  that  we  can  continue  to  be  of  some  use 
in  the  vast  universe?  Is  there  then  any- 
thing selfish  in  desiring  to  live  to  do  good  ? 
Is  it  not  rather  selfish  to  wish  to  pass  out 
of  all  possibilities  of  service  hereafter  ? 

This  desire,  then,  being  legitimate  and 
transcendent  in  importance,  let  us  clearly 
understand  what  are  the  conditions  of  the 
discussion.  No  amount  of  argument  will 
ever  prove  immortality.  To  awake  alive 
after  having  died  is  the  only  absolute  demon- 
stration. Nor  will  any  amount  of  argument 
convince  an  unwilling  skeptic.  Sympathy 
for  or  against  will,  underneath  all  arguments, 
decide  one's  real  conviction.  The  realiza- 
tion of  immortality  is  not  reached  as  the 
result  of  logical  reasoning,  but  rather  as 
a  consciousness,  a  spiritual  apprehension, 
and,  above  all,  from  living  one's  way  into 
the  spiritual  realities,  so  that  one  knows  that 
he  is  in  touch  with  the  Eternal  and  cannot  die. 
Yet  no  thoughtful  man  is  either  a  believer 

16 


Introductory 

or  a  rationalist  all  the  time.  On  occasions 
he  is  one  or  the  other,  or  even  both.  "  Lord, 
I  believe ;  help  Thou  mine  unbelief."  In 
hours  of  terrible  bereavement,  unfathomable 
mystery,  of  the  sudden  challenging  of  faith's 
reasons,  of  the  appreciation  of  the  modern 
outburst  of  knowledge  with  its  new  interpre- 
tations of  both  nature  and  religion,  man 
turns  with  a  trembling  eagerness  to  test  the 
foundations  of  all  truth,  and  to  strengthen 
himself  in  a  reasonable  trust.  Here  is  the 
precise  realm  that  is  open  on  this  vast  sub- 
ject,— to  seek  the  grounds  of  an  intelligent 
trust.  If  immortality,  in  the  final  analysis, 
must  be  a  matter  of  faith,  it  can  be  a  con- 
firmed faith,  with  all  credulity  and  falsity 
eliminated,  established  and  reestablished  as 
being  bound  up  with  all  that  is  highest  in  the 
soul,  the  human  race,  history  and  God.  For 
let  it  be  understood  that  while  immortality 
cannot  be  demonstrated,  it  can  be  predicted. 
And  so  many  predictions  can  be  brought 
from  all  realms  as  to  result  in  a  moral  cer- 
tainty. When  these  different  predictions 
are  all  assembled  in  a  great  cumulative  argu- 
ment, the  belief  becomes  inevitable.  We 
can  start  with  Emerson  with  the  preliminary 
conviction  that  if  it  be  best  that  conscious 

17 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

life  shall  continue,  it  will  continue.  With 
this  conviction  we  can  look  through  all  the 
different  grand  departments  of  thought  and 
ask, — Is  it  best  ?  And  careful  inquiry  will 
reveal  such  an  overwhelming  conviction  that 
it  is  best  that  we  will  be  forced  to  feel  abso- 
lutely confident  that  life  will  continue. 

To  this  end,  however,  one  must  view  the 
question  comprehensively  from  the  three 
great  departments  of  human  thought, — - 
science,  philosophy  and  religion, — collecting 
facts  in  all  these  realms,  and  then  by  induc- 
tion establishing  the  inference.  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  stake  the  whole  question  on  any  one 
of  these  departments  exclusively,  as  all  three 
are  but  coordinated  parts  of  truth,  and  one's 
nature  craves  different  confirmations  in  dif- 
ferent moods,  at  times  seeking  to  satisfy  the 
intellect,  at  other  times  the  heart,  and  still 
at  other  times  the  conscience.  The  need  of 
this  comprehensive  cumulative  argument  is 
seen  when  we  look  at  the  mistakes  many 
enthusiasts  have  made  in  limiting  the  whole 
discussion  to  one  line  of  prediction.  Many, 
for  instance,  take  the  ground  that  the  ques- 
tion is  exclusively  one  of  revelation,  that  it 
is  therefore  confined  to  the  supernatural 
disclosure  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  that  it 

18 


Introductory 

stands  or  falls  with  the  criticism  of  that  one 
Book,  that  all  other  arguments  are  inade- 
quate without  it,  and  superfluous  with  it. 
But  what  about  the  millions  on  this  globe 
that  reject  the  Bible?  Shall  there  be  no 
predictions  for  them  outside  of  revelation  ? 
And  if  criticism  raises  any  doubt  as  to  the 
authenticity,  canonicity  and  inspiration  of 
these  certain  Hebrew,  Chaldaic,  and  Greek 
manuscripts,  shall  men  feel  that  the  only 
ground  of  belief  is  gone  ?  Whether  the 
Scriptures  are  divinely  inspired  or  not  does 
not  exclusively  affect  the  fact  of  man's  im- 
mortality, as  that  depends  on  the  character 
of  the  soul  and  the  will  of  the  Creator.  And 
any  fact  revealed  by  inspiration  becomes 
only  doubly  sure  when  corroborated  by  God's 
greater  revelation  in  man,  nature,  history, 
and  the  trend  of  the  universe. 

Others  make  the  mistake  of  staking  the 
whole  question  upon  the  corporeal  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ,  declaring  the  human  race 
survives  or  perishes  solely  according  as  to 
whether  Christ  did  or  did  not  rise  from  the 
dead.  When,  then,  one  hears  modern  ration- 
alistic thought  rejecting  that  resurrection  on 
the  ground  of  insufficiency  and  unreliability 
of  testimony  for  such  a  stupendous  event,  he 

19 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

feels  all  hope  of  his  personal  immortality 
trembles  with  this  one  discussion  of  the  his- 
toric accuracy  of  an  occurrence  said  to  have 
transpired  nineteen  centuries  ago.  Whereas 
all  Christ's  resurrection  does  is  to  bring  im- 
mortality to  light,  not  to  create  it.  "  Man  is 
not  immortal  because  Christ  rose,  but  Christ 
rose  because  man  is  immortal."  If  He  did 
not  rise,  man  is  immortal  just  the  same  pro- 
viding it  is  the  soul's  nature,  as  immortality 
depends  on  the  nature  of  God's  creation  and 
will. 

Nor  will  the  old  argument  from  the  analo- 
gies of  nature  carry  conviction  when  used 
alone  in  its  usual  form.  For  to-day  we  see 
that  it  is  false  inference  to  argue  from  phys- 
ical analogies  to  a  spiritual  state.  The  res- 
urrection of  seed  into  flower,  chrysalis  into 
butterfly,  winter  into  spring  are  physical 
changes  throughout,  and  do  not  apply  to 
the  entire  dissolution  of  the  body  and  the 
survival  of  the  spirit  in  a  disembodied  state. 
Moreover,  the  lavish  waste  of  nature  in 
allowing  ten  thousand  seeds  and  germs  to 
perish  for  every  one  that  she  brings  to  frui- 
tion, discourages  any  such  analogy  as  to  her 
necessarily  saving  every  one  of  the  myriads 
of  human  lives. 

20 


Introductory 

Nor  will  the  old  mystical  metaphysical 
arguments,  such  as  Plato  advanced,  of  the 
soul's  being  "  immaterial,"  "  simple,"  "  in- 
dissoluble," carry  much  conviction  in  this 
day  where  the  very  existence  of  the  soul  is 
strenuously  denied  by  materialists. 

Other  moralists  make  an  equal  mistake  in 
placing  the  whole  question  upon  the  moral 
consequences  resulting.  Mankind,  they 
argue,  should  cherish  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality because  it  is  the  safeguard  of  the  race, 
because  without  it  humanity  would  degen- 
erate. History  and  experience  prove  that 
when  once  men  come  to  believe  that  this 
life  is  all,  they  quickly  break  through  the 
dam  of  all  moral  restraint,  crying, — Let  us 
eat,  drink  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we 
die,  and  widespread  moral  ruin  is  the  dis- 
astrous result.  Profound  statesmen  have 
therefore  declared  that  human  institutions 
would  crumble  in  a  few  generations  were 
immortality  conclusively  disproved.  But 
when  one  stops  to  seriously  reflect  upon  this 
argument  and  hears  the  far  nobler  response 
to  it,  namely,  that  truth  should  never  ask, 
what  are  the  consequences,  but  only, 
what  are  the  facts,  that  a  fallacy  is  never 
justifiable  no  matter  what  the  consequences 

21 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

may  be,  that  one  must  never  do  evil  that 
good  may  come,  that  virtue  is  to  be  sought 
for  her  own  intrinsic  quality,  and  not  out  of 
a  selfish  policy  to  secure  reward, — one's  con- 
science responds  at  once  to  this  higher  code 
of  ethics,  and  this  argument  of  moral  con- 
sequences is  shattered.  If  immortality  is 
true,  it  is  gratifying  to  know  that  its  truth 
helps  elevate  the  race,  as  it  undoubtedly 
does,  but  if  immortality  is  false,  then  no 
elevation  of  the  race  can  justify  accepting 
or  promulgating  a  lie  and  humanity  will 
have  to  be  taught  virtue  and  self-sacrifice  for 
the  sake  of  their  own  beauty,  nobility  and 
reward. 

Still  other  philosophers  have  staked  the 
whole  question  upon  the  evident  moral  ne- 
cessity of  satisfying  the  claims  of  justice, 
and  of  fulfilling  the  postulates  of  instinct, 
feeling  and  affection.  But  suppose  it  were 
part  of  the  scheme  of  the  universe  that 
justice  should  be  violated  and  the  presenti- 
ments of  the  human  heart,  however  strong, 
disappointed  ? 

Other  thinkers  feel  they  have  reached  the 
final  rock  of  stability  when  they  make  the 
foundation  of  the  whole  question  of  immor- 
tality rest  upon  the  fact  of  the  goodness  of 

22 


Introductory 

God,  and  that  goodness  being  pledged  to 
allowing  man's  survival  hereafter.  Yet  there 
are  thousands  of  blinded  sufferers  in  the 
midst  of  life's  mysterious  tortures,  who  in 
their  agony,  do  not  really  feel  that  God  is 
good,  and  who  would  despair,  in  the  face  of 
the  existence  of  evil,  if  immortality  rested 
solely  on  God's  goodness. 

Thus  we  see  it  is  a  mistake  to  place  so 
vast  a  problem  exclusively  on  any  one  single 
phase  of  universal  truth.  No  one  of  these 
arguments  alone  carries  conviction  to  all 
minds  at  all  times ;  but,  wrhen  one  takes  the 
grand  cumulative  argument,  commencing 
and  grounding  itself  in  the  hard  cold  domain 
of  science,  rising  up  through  the  vast  realm 
of  philosophy,  to  the  moral  and  theological 
climax,  faith  then  finds  she  has  a  solid  pyra- 
mid of  confirmed  truth  on  which  to  rest. 
Moreover,  as  Coleridge  says, — "  Faith  is  it- 
self a  higher  reason,  and  corrects  the  errors 
of  reason,  as  reason  corrects  the  errors  of 
sense." 


23 


The  Predictions  of  Science 


II 

THE  PREDICTIONS  OF  SCIENCE 

In  a  certain  sense,  science  first  blocks  the 
road  to  the  discussion  of  this  theme,  for 
science  dealing  with  the  facts  demonstrable 
to  the  senses  and  to  the  laws  arising  there- 
from, can  say  whether  such  a  future  exist- 
ence is  an  absolute  impossibility,  or  whether 
the  way  is  at  least  open  to  it.  It  is  of  little 
avail  to  argue  life  after  death  from  the 
nature  of  God,  man  and  the  universe,  if  the 
materialist  declares  that  there  is  even  no 
such  thing  as  a  soul  whatsoever,  nor  any 
spirit  apart  from  matter.  We  must  first 
understand  where  he  errs  and  know  that 
future  existence  is  at  least  possible,  before 
philosophy  and  religion  can  produce  convic- 
tion. 

What  then  is  the  strictly  scientific  atti- 
tude of  to-day  towards  the  problem  of  a 
future  life  ?  In  general,  it  is  undoubtedly 
that  of  agnosticism.  Some  scientists,  like 
Faraday,  combine  a  beautiful  strong  faith 

V 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

with  their  physical  investigations.  Many 
others  refuse  to  discuss  the  question,  declar- 
ing it  irrelevant  and  relegating  it  to  the 
domains  of  philosophy  and  theology.  But 
the  vast  majority  stand  with  Darwin,  Hux- 
ley, Spencer  and  Tyndall  in  declaring  that 
nothing  can  be  either  proved  or  disproved 
on  the  subject,  that  no  one  can  either  affirm 
or  deny  future  existence  as  he  does  not  pos- 
sess the  necessary  facts  for  forming  judg- 
ment. They  acknowledge  frankly,  how- 
ever, that  there  is  a  mysterious  quality 
called  "  Life,"  which  since  no  one  can  un- 
derstand, no  one  can  be  sure  of  its  future 
non-existence.  But  this  is  all.  One  is  not 
forbidden  to  hope,  but  one  is  forbidden  to 
affirm. 

Yet  when  we  look  at  this  most  popular 
position  of  the  present  day,  we  see  it  is 
the  answer  not  of  all  science,  but  only  of 
physical  science.  Of  course  the  question  of 
immortality  is  out  of  the  realm  of  physical 
science.  So  are  all  the  supreme  realities  of 
life, — God,  the  soul,  the  moral  sense,  the  af- 
fections, the  beautiful,  the  true  and  the 
good.  Yet  these  are  the  highest  part  of 
man's  constitution.  One  might  as  well  try 
to  weigh  an  emotion,  obtain  the  specific 

28 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

gravity  of  an  affection,  or  the  chemical  an- 
alysis of  a  soul  as  to  try  to  test  scientifically 
the  indestructible  life  of  the  spirit,  which 
belongs  not  to  the  domain  of  sense,  but  to 
that  of  spirit.  But  physical  science  is  but 
one  branch  of  science.  Science  itself  is 
comprehensive.  It  means  all  systematized 
knowledge.  There  is  a  science  of  meta- 
physics just  as  truly  as  a  science  of  physics, 
what  we  think  and  feel  is  as  genuinely 
real  as  what  we  see  or  touch,  the  facts  of 
experience  are  as  truly  facts  as  those  of 
scientific  demonstration.  Physical  science 
alone  may  not  be  able  to  prove  or  disprove 
immortality,  but  bring  all  science  from  all 
its  branches  and  the  indications  are  over- 
whelming. "When  then  we  obtain  a  com- 
prehensive view  from  the  whole  field,  we 
will  see  that,  taken  cumulatively,  there  are 
abundantly  sufficient  grounds  for  forming  a 
judgment,  and  that  this  agnostic  position  in 
view  of  the  sum  total  of  predictions  is 
inconsistent.  All  we  need  from  strictly 
physical  science  is  the  assurance  that  if 
immortality  is  not  proved,  it  is  not,  at 
least,  disproved,  and  that  the  way,  there- 
fore, is  open  for  investigation  on  broader 
lines. 

29 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

But  this,  although  the  most  popular  view, 
is  not  the  only  attitude  of  science  to-day. 
There  is  an  extreme  position  of  the  material- 
ist, who  is  not  even  willing  to  leave  the  prob- 
lem doubtful,  but  positively  denies  all  future 
existence,  declaring  that  matter  is  the  only 
substance,  that  all  psychical  phenomena  are 
but  the  products  of  matter,  that  life  there- 
fore begins  with  the  body  and  ends  with 
the  body,  consciousness  being  evolved  from 
brain  matter  and  therefore  ceasing  with 
its  dissolution.  "  Physiology,"  says  Vogt, 
"  decides  definitely  and  categorically  against 
individual  immortality,  as  against  any  sepa- 
rate  existence  of  the  soul."  "  Thought  is  a 
motion  of  matter,"  says  Moleschott,  "no 
thought  without  phosphorus."  "  With  the 
decay  and  dissolution  of  its  material  sub- 
stratum," says  Buchner,  "  through  which 
alone  it  has  acquired  a  conscious  existence 
and  become  a  person,  and  upon  which  it 
was  dependent,  the  spirit  must  cease  to  ex- 
ist." "  The  octogenesis  of  consciousness," 
says  Haeckel,  "  makes  it  perfectly  clear  that 
it  is  not  an  '  immaterial  entity,'  but  a  phys- 
iological function  of  the  brain."  "  The  de- 
struction of  any  piece  of  the  apparatus,"  says 
Duhring,  "  involves  the  loss  of  some  one  or 

30 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

other  of  the  vital  operations,  and  the  conse- 
quence is  that,  as  far  as  life  extends,  we 
have  before  us  only  an  organic  function,  not 
a  Ding-an-sich,  or  an  expression  of  the 
imaginary  entity  the  soul.  This  fundamen- 
tal proposition  carries  with  it  the  denial  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  since,  where  no 
soul  exists,  its  mortality  or  immortality  can- 
not be  raised  as  a  question." 

In  the  face  then  of  these  astounding  posi- 
tive declarations,  we  must  first  answer  the 
materialist  in  general,  and,  after  that,  turn  to 
understand  that  special  phase  of  materialism 
that  claims  the  brain  produces  and  ends  mind. 
In  general,  then,  how  is  it  possible  for  any 
sane  man  to  positively  declare  the  soul  does 
not  exist  after  death  ?  How  can  he  pos- 
sibly know  ?  All  his  physical  facts  relate  to 
mind  in  body,  but  do  not  cover  the  field  of 
mind  separated  from  body.  The  fact  that 
body  and  mind  are  never  separated  here 
does  not,  by  any  manner  of  means,  prove 
that  they  are  therefore  inseparable.  To 
prove  the  soul  is  mortal,  one  would  have  to 
follow  a  death  throughout  the  whole  uni- 
verse, and  show  positively  the  non-existence 
of  any  surviving  spirit  in  any  spot  in  all 
space,  which  clearly  science  never  has  and 

3i 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

never  can  do.  And  even  could  it  do  this 
with  one  or  a  million  corpses,  that  would  not 
necessarily  imply  that  the  same  would  be 
true  with  succeeding  millions.  When  there- 
fore sober  scientists  like  those  quoted,  so 
eminent  in  their  own  domains,  make  false 
inferences  outside  of  their  provinces,  declar- 
ing categorically  against  the  soul's  immor- 
tality, they  are  violating  all  rules  of  their 
own  science,  and  are  exhibiting  more  dog- 
matism, credulity,  presumption  and  false  in- 
duction than  the  most  exalted  believer  ever 
thinks  of  displaying.  All  that  science  can 
claim  is  that  consciousness  never  exists 
without  brain  here,  but  it  can  say  absolutely 
nothing  as  to  whether  it  will  or  will  not 
exist  without  brain  hereafter. 

And  right  here  must  be  placed  Butler's 
famous  argument,  that  whatever  exists  now 
has  in  its  favor  a  presumption,  at  least,  of 
continued  existence  unless  it  can  be  shown 
there  is  something  that  must  necessarily 
stop  it.  Unless  it  can  be  proved  that  death 
destroys  the  soul,  the  fact  that  the  soul  now 
lives  makes  it  probable  that  it  will  continue 
to  live.  Just  as  the  fact  of  the  uniformity 
of  nature,  the  regularity  of  its  sunrises  and 
sunsets,  its  seed-times  and  harvests,  its  moons 

32 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

and  tides,  makes  it  probable  that  these  will 
continue,  so  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the 
soul  justifies  expecting  its  continuance  un- 
less death  can  be  proved  to  be  its  destruc- 
tion. Now  death  can  only  be  proved  to  be 
the  soul's  destruction  either  from  the  reason 
of  the  thing  or  from  analogy.  But  not 
knowing  what  death  is,  we  cannot  infer  it 
destroys  the  soul  from  the  reason  of  the 
thing;  and  not  being  able  to  follow  even 
animals  beyond  death,  we  cannot  argue  an- 
nihilation from  analogy.  Therefore  the  pre- 
sumption remains,  from  the  fact  that  the 
soul  now  lives  and  that  nothing  can  be 
proved  to  stop  it,  that  it  will  therefore  con- 
tinue to  live.  Even  if  one  says  there  is  no 
God  and  therefore  men  are  mortal,  he  is 
illogical  from  this  standpoint,  for  if  we  have 
lived  once  without  a  God,  the  presump- 
tion, at  least,  is  in  favor  that  we  can  live 
without  Him  again.  So  that  the  most 
extreme  view  that  even  an  atheistical  ma- 
terialist can  logically  take  is,  after  all,  to 
become  an  agnostic,  declaring  that  nothing 
can  be  proved  either  way,  yet  acknowledg- 
ing that  present  existence  leaves  a  presump- 
tion in  favor  of  continued  existence,  and 
acknowledging  also,  as  even  the  agnostic 

33 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

acknowledges,  that  the  way  is  left  open  for 
hope. 

But  again,  the  materialist  in  claiming  that 
matter  is  the  only  substance,  that  all  psy- 
chical phenomena  are  simply  the  result  of 
complicated  motions  of  matter,  is  not  him- 
self strictly  scientific.  For  true  analysis 
quickly  resolves  matter  into  spirit,  the  seen 
into  the  unseen.  Analyze  matter  and  you 
find  that  its  essence  consists  in  force.  Mod- 
ern science  has  found  that  the  universe  is 
composed  of  two  distinct  factors, — matter 
and  power.  Power  is  something  entirely 
distinct  from  matter,  having  none  of  its 
properties,  possessing  neither  form  nor 
weight,  and  being  absolutely  indestructible, 
being  changed  but  never  being  annihilated. 
Power  uses  matter,  but  is  not  identical  with 
the  material  in  the  matter,  any  more  than 
the  magnetic  current  is  identical  with  the 
steel  it  uses  to  make  it  a  magnet.  The  steel 
does  not  produce  the  force  but  the  force 
uses  the  steel.  All  matter  therefore  runs 
back  for  the  basis  of  its  action  to  this 
power  that  underlies  it.  All  the  qualities 
of  matter  are  due,  also,  to  cohesive,  repul- 
sive, gravitative,  chemical,  electrical  forces, 
or  to  motions  such  as  heat,  sound  and  light. 

34 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

All  matter  is  the  metamorphosis  of  some 
previous  kind  of  motion.  In  the  final  an- 
alysis it  is  motion.  To  the  scientist  the 
entire  visible  universe  from  a  grain  of  sand 
to  the  worlds  in  space,  is  simply  different 
degrees  of  quivering,  pulsating,  vibrating 
motion.  Matter  is  thus  the  external  ex- 
pression of  force.  Now  then,  trace  back 
force.  Force  is  an  effort.  Effort  is  the  re- 
sult of  will.  Will  is  the  result  of  intelli- 
gence. So  we  are  thus  brought  back  to  a 
spiritual  Being  as  the  final  operating  cause 
of  the  universe.  Back  of  this  universe  of 
motion  we  reach  an  infinite  Intelligence  and 
Life  that  is  expressing  thought  by  this  mo- 
tion. Matter,  thus  quickly  resolving  itself 
into  force,  and  force  into  spirit,  is  seen  to 
be  but  a  form  of  spirit.  Therefore  the  cor- 
rect scientific  view  is  that  the  invisible,  the 
spiritual  is  the  enduring  reality  that  sub- 
stands  all  phenomena,  and  matter  is  only  its 
expression,  its  vehicle.  Instead,  therefore, 
of  materializing  spirit,  the  profoundest 
science  to-day  spiritualizes  matter.  Sir 
William  Crookes,  the  famous  English  scien- 
tist, in  an  address  before  the  international 
chemical  congress  at  Berlin,  has  just  taken 
this  precise  position  from  purely  scientific 

35 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

reasoning,  declaring  that  all  matter  is  a 
kind  of  force,  all  elements  probably  resolva- 
ble into  one  form  of  energy,  atoms  probably 
resolving  themselves  into  a  multitude  of  re- 
volving electrodes.  "  All  these  observations 
(Roentgen  rays,  Bequerel  rays),"  says  he, 
"find  internal  connection  in  the  discovery  of 
radium,  which  probably  is  the  basis  of  the 
coarser  chemical  elements  here.  Probably 
masses  of  molecules  dissolve  themselves  into 
the  ether  waves  of  the  universe  or  into 
electrical  energy.  Thus  we  stand  on  the 
border  line  where  matter  and  force  pass 
into  each  other.  In  this  borderland  lie  the 
greatest  scientific  problems  of  the  future. 
Here  lie  the  final  realities,  wide  reaching 
and  marvellous.  The  nineteenth  century 
saw  the  birth  of  new  views  regarding  the 
nature  of  atoms,  electricitv  and  ether. 
While  our  views  about  the  composition  of 
matter  are  generally  satisfactory  to-day, 
will  that  be  the  case  at  the  end  of  the 
twentieth  century?  Do  we  not  again  see 
that  our  investigations  have  only  a  tempo- 
rary value  ?  Will  we  be  content  to  see  mat- 
ter dissolving  into  a  multitude  of  revolving 
electrodes  ?  Such  a  mysterious  dissolution 
of   atoms  appears  to  be  universal.    It  is 

36 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

present  in  sunshine,  in  a  raindrop,  in  light- 
ning, in  a  flame,  in  a  waterfall,  and  in  the 
roaring  sea.  Although  the  range  of  human 
experience  is  too  short  to  form  a  parallax 
whereby  we  can  foretell  the  disappearance 
of  matter,  nevertheless  it  is  possible  that 
formless  nebulae  again  will  prevail  when  the 
hour  glass  of  eternity  has  run  out."  There- 
fore the  latest,  highest  answer  of  science  it- 
self is  that  matter  is  but  a  kind  of  force, 
and  force  an  expression  of  effort,  will,  in- 
telligence, the  spiritual  therefore  being  the 
enduring  reality  underneath  the  material. 

Matter,  therefore,  cannot  originate  psychi- 
cal phenomena,  but  can  only  cooperate  with 
it,  clothe  it,  and  be  used  by  it.  And  the 
highest  scientists  themselves  corroborate  this 
view.  "  Psychic  life,"  says  Professor  "Wundt, 
"  is  not  the  product  of  the  bodily  organism, 
but  the  bodily  organism  is  rather  a  psychic 
creation."  "Cells,"  says  Huxley,  "are  no 
more  the  products  of  vital  phenomena  than 
the  shells  scattered  in  orderly  lines  along 
the  seabeach  are  instruments  by  which  the 
gravitation  force  of  the  moon  acts  upon  the 
ocean.  Like  these,  the  cells  mark  only 
where  the  vital  tides  have  been,  and  how 
they  have  acted."    Conversely,  then,  vital 

37 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

phenomena  are  no  more  the  product  of  cells 
than  gravitation  is  the  product  of  the  shells 
on  the  seashore.  "Life,"  says  Jacobi,  "is 
not  a  form  of  body :  but  body  is  one  form 
of  life."  Tyndall  acknowledges  that  there 
is  a  certain  force  in  the  organism  that 
science  cannot  reach  nor  explain,  that  "  re- 
fuses the  yoke  of  ordinary  physical  laws." 
And  Haeckel  after  summarizing  all  his 
monistic  philosophy  as  denying  God,  immor- 
tality and  freedom,  yet  says  in  his  conclu- 
sion, "  We  grant  at  once  that  the  innermost 
character  of  nature  is  just  as  little  under- 
stood by  us  as  it  was  by  Anaximander  and 
Empedocles  twenty-four  hundred  years  ago, 
by  Spinoza  and  Newton  two  hundred  years 
ago,  and  by  Kant  and  Goethe  one  hundred 
years  ago.  We  must  even  grant  that  this 
essence  of  substance  becomes  more  mvste- 
rious  and  enigmatic  the  deeper  we  penetrate 
into  the  knowledge  of  its  attributes,  matter 
and  energy,  and  the  more  thoroughly  we 
study  its  countless  phenomenal  forms  and 
their  evolution.  We  do  not  know  the 
'  thing  in  itself  that  lies  behind  these 
knowable  phenomena."  Is  it  not  then  more 
logical,  reasonable  and  even  scientific  to  call 
this  " '  thing  in  itself '  that  lies  behind  these 

38 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

knowable  phenomena,"  Mind,  rather  than 
inexplicable  substance,  and  declare  in  para- 
phrase,— In  the  beginning  was  Mind,  and 
Mind  was  with  God  and  Mind  was  God. 
The  same  was  in  the  beginning  with  God. 
And  all  things  were  made  by  Mind,  and 
without  Mind  was  not  anything  made  that 
was  made. 

This  discovery  of  power,  force,  spirit, 
being  the  basis  of  matter  in  the  universe  is 
as  true  in  the  case  of  each  individual.  All 
life  is  likewise  traced  back  to  a  spirit  basis. 
Take  the  microscope  and  trace  back  the  be- 
ginning of  our  organism  and  its  growth. 
We  find  the  body  originates  in  a  germ,  a 
seed.  Trace  back  the  seed  and  we  come  to 
the  single  cell.  Inspect  the  cell,  and  we 
find  within  it  a  nucleus,  its  protoplasm. 
Inspect  the  nucleus  and  we  find  two  star 
"center  zones"  appearing,  and  sixteen  chro- 
matic threads.  Watch  these  threads  and 
we  see  them  forming  themselves,  eight  to 
the  right  center  zone,  eight  to  the  left  cen- 
ter zone.  Then,  slowly,  we  see  the  skein  in 
between  beginning  to  shrink,  the  rest  of  the 
protoplasmic  cell  beginning  to  divide,  and 
the  single  mother  cell  becoming  two  daugh- 
ter cells.    These  two  then  repeat  the  process, 

39 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

and  so  on,  ad  infinitum,  these  multiplying 
cells  differing  from  one  another,  each  taking 
its  place  according  to  a  marvellous  architec- 
tural plan,  and  forming  amazing  complex 
combinations  with  one  another.  This  then 
is  the  sublime  mystery  of  all  life  in  the  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  kingdoms,  the  cell  divid- 
ing and  subdividing,  when  this  is  not  accom- 
plished by  accretion  or  addition  since  the 
process  starts  with  a  single  cell.  Now  in 
all  this  mystery  of  life  it  is  evident  that  the 
whole  character  of  the  first  atom  of  proto- 
plasm consists  not  in  its  matter,  but  in  the 
vital  force,  the  dynamic  power  in  that  mat- 
ter. And  this  force  brings  us  back  to  an 
originating  first  force  or  power,  which  must 
be  the  underlying  basis  of  all  life. 

This  then  is  the  first  great  fundamental 
scientific  truth  to  get  clearly  in  mind  in 
considering  the  subject  of  immortality, 
namely  that  the  substratum  of  all  life  and 
the  universe  is  not  matter,  but  power, 
energy,  force,  spirit.  For  in  this  way  we 
see  that  the  soul  is  not  something  generated 
from  matter,  but  is  a  force  placed  in  matter, 
which  needs  not  necessarily  be  impaired 
when  this  matter  falls  away.  Science  is 
utterly  unable  to  tell  what  force  in  itself  is. 

40 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

If  we  are  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  this 
substratum  of  life,  we  cannot  limit  its  con- 
tinuance. Mind,  some  say,  may  have  been 
developed  out  of  force;  but  if  so,  it  must 
have  been  all  along  inherent  in  force,  and 
why  then  may  it  not  continue  with  force, 
being  developed  out  of  intelligence  here 
to  another  form  of  life  after  leaving  this 
body?  Berkeley  therefore  was  scientific, 
at  least  in  the  way  he  looked  out  upon  life. 
To  him  the  external  world  was  but  the 
infinite  power  addressing  the  mind  through 
the  senses.  The  world  was  nothing  more 
than  sensations  perpetually  renewed  by 
God  speaking  to  the  percipient  spirit  of 
man.  The  soul  is  the  active  principle  joined 
to  the  passive  principle  the  body.  Death 
simply  separates  the  active  non-mortal  from 
the  passive  perishable. 

Thus  much,  in  general,  as  to  the  material- 
ist's assertion  that  matter  is  the  only  sub- 
stance and  all  psychic  phenomena  the  prod- 
uct only  of  complicated  motions  of  matter. 
But  this  is  not  all.  There  is  a  special  phase 
of  materialism  that  goes  into  quite  elaborate 
proof  that  consciousness  is  the  product  solely 
of  brain  matter.  During  the  last  half  cen- 
tury physiological  psychology  has  made  as- 

4i 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

tounding  discoveries  in  regard  to  the  vital 
closeness  of  the  union  between  consciousness 
and  brain,  mind  and  body.  The  remarkable 
progress  of  empirical  science  and  of  micro- 
scopic anatomy  has  revealed  such  an  inti- 
mate dependence  of  mind  on  matter,  con- 
sciousness on  brain  as  to  lead  many  to  con- 
clude that  the  one  is  the  sole  product  of  the 
other  and  cannot  exist  without  the  other. 
Until  recently  brain  structure  and  mechan- 
ism remained  a  veiled  mystery  because  of 
the  apparent  impossibility  of  making  its 
nerves,  cells  and  fibres  sufficiently  hard  and 
colored  to  admit  of  microscopic  examination ; 
but  to-day,  by  means  of  staining  the  brain 
by  soaking  it  in  salts  of  silver,  by  hardening 
and  slicing  it,  the  whole  intricate  structure 
of  nerve,  cell  and  fibre  stands  revealed  in  all 
its  marvellous  complexity.  The  appearance 
is  like  that  of  a  thick  leafless  forest,  the 
nerves  and  fibrils  resembling  large  trees 
with  myriads  of  branches,  that  apparently 
intertwine  with  the  branches  of  the  other 
trees,  but  that,  in  reality,  do  not  quite  touch 
one  another.  The  chemical  composition  of 
the  mass  is  about  three  pounds,  avoirdupois, 
of  complex  phosphorized  matter,  and  the 
average  total  number  of  its  cells  has  been 

42 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

computed  as  about  sixteen  hundred  millions, 
each  cell  often  possessing  hundreds  of  fibrils, 
so  that  its  capacity  seems  almost  illimitable. 

Evolution  has  also  brought  to  light  the 
history  of  brain  development.  In  the  low- 
est forms  of  life  we  first  detect  a  small 
thread  of  a  nervous  system.  As  we  ascend 
through  the  series  we  see  this  thread  increas- 
ing in  size  and  complexity  until  a  bunch  of 
nerves  at  one  end  forms  a  ganglion,  which, 
in  time,  becomes  the  head.  This  ganglion 
steadily  increases  in  size  and  especially  in 
convolutions  (for  it  is  not  the  size  of  brain 
but  its  superficial  area  obtained  by  creasings 
that  gives  mental  power),  up  through  the 
series  of  fish,  bird,  beast,  cave  dweller, 
Negroid,  Indian,  Mongolian  to  the  highest 
Caucasian  attainment.  It  was  the  gradual 
enlargement  of  the  brain  pushing  the  eyes 
of  the  animal  forward  and  downward, 
that  compelled  him  in  order  to  see  ahead  of 
him,  first  to  raise  his  head,  and  afterwards 
his  body,  until  gradually  the  semi-erect  and 
at  last  the  fully  erect  posture  (as  in  the  case 
of  the  Gibbon)  were  obtained. 

All  the  different  functions  of  mind  and 
body  are  also  now  localized  in  different 
"sense-centres,"  and  "thought-centres,"  so 

43 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

that  we  know  the  exact  localities  where 
impressions  are  received  and  coordinated 
into  consciousness  and  where  consciousness 
in  turn  produces  the  effects  of  mind  and 
body.  Thus,  the  corticle  gray  matter  on 
either  side  of  what  is  called  "  the  fissure  of 
Eolando"  is  the  great  motor  area,  where 
all  the  physical  movements  of  the  body  are 
controlled  as  from  a  central  telegraph  head- 
quarters. The  four  great  "  sense-centres  " 
are  each  localized  in  the  gray  matter, — 
touch  in  the  vertical  lobe,  smell  in  the 
frontal,  sight  in  the  occipital,  and  hearing 
in  the  temporal.  Between  these  four 
"  sense-centres,"  lie  the  four  great  "  thought- 
centres,"  distinguished  by  elaborate  nerve- 
structure,  that  the  materialist  claims  are 
the  sole  organs  of  mental  life,  the  producing 
instrument  of  all  thought  and  consciousness. 
In  front  we  have  the  frontal  centre  of 
association,  on  top  the  parietal  centre  of 
association,  underneath  the  principal  brain 
"the  great  occipito-temporal  centre  of  as- 
sociation," and  lower  down  internally,  the 
insular  centre  of  association. 

The  process  of  receiving  and  responding 
to  the  different  kinds  of  words  is  also 
localized.    When  we  read  the  written  word 

44 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

we  use  the  occipital  lobe ;  when  we  hear 
and  understand  the  spoken  word  we  use 
the  temporal  lobe ;  when  we  speak  the  oral 
word,  we  use  the  frontal  convolutions ; 
when  we  form  the  written  word,  we  use 
the  middle  third  convolution ;  when  we 
reason  or  exert  will  power  we  use  the 
superior  and  middle  frontal  convolutions. 
All  this  is  confirmed  by  the  pathological 
study  of  brain  diseases.  When  any  one  of 
these  localities  is  injured,  the  corresponding 
faculty  is  deranged,  resulting  in  the  various 
forms  of  aphasia.  Often  the  patient  can 
hear,  speak,  write  and  see,  but  suddenly 
cannot  recognize  printed  matter.  In  such 
cases  the  physician  knows  that  it  is  the 
occipital  lobe  of  the  brain  that  is  affected, 
and  the  post-mortem  always  confirms  it. 
When  he  can  understand  but  cannot  talk, 
it  is  because  of  the  disease  of  the  third 
frontal  convolution.  When  he  can  hear  yet 
cannot  understand  words,  the  first  temporal 
convolution  is  affected.  Many  cases  are  on 
record  of  paralytics  who  could  not  speak, 
read,  write  nor  see,  yet  who  were  declared 
to  be  legally  able  to  execute  wills  previously 
prepared,  because  they  were  able  to  notice 
and  remonstrate  whenever  experts  misread 

45 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

their  figures,  showing  that  their  faculty  of 
numbers  was  thus  unimpaired,  that  although 
most  of  the  chords  of  their  organism  were 
broken,  sufficient  were  left  on  that  one 
faculty  to  make  good  their  figures. 

But  not  only  are  these  main  divisions  of 
faculties  thus  located,  but  even  the  more 
abstract  processes  of  thought  are  analyzed 
as  resulting  from  processes  of  association  of 
different  centres  of  coordination  of  im- 
pressions in  the  brain.  We  cannot  limit 
each  faculty  to  a  particular  lobe,  except  in 
general,  for  it  is  also  connected  through 
association  with  numerous  centres  of  im- 
pressions all  over  the  brain.  Thus  destroy- 
ing speech  does  not  destroy  language  as 
a  whole.  Therefore  while  localizing  the 
principal  faculties,  science  also  regards  the 
whole  brain  as  consisting  of  numerous 
centres  of  impressions,  and  the  higher 
processes  of  intellection  are  produced  by 
the  working  together  of  these  various 
centres.  But  the  gaps  between  the  motor 
and  sensory  centres  are  located  as  being  the 
places  where  the  processes  of  association 
and  of  abstract  thought  primarily  take 
place,  insanity  having  its  starting  point 
here;  disease  of  the  frontal  part  of  these 

46 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

association-centres  deranging  the  conscious- 
ness of  self,  disease  of  the  posterior  part  of 
these  association-centres  deranging  the 
perception  of  objective  relations. 

But  science  has  done  even  more  than  this. 
It  has  not  only  localized  where  results  are 
produced,  but  has  sought  to  discover  the 
producing  cause  and  the  process  of  its  ac- 
tion. Even  the  physiological  process  of 
thinking  has  been  revealed.  The  whole 
nervous  system  is  like  numerous  telegraph 
wires  running  from  all  parts  of  the  body  up 
the  spinal  cord  to  the  base  of  the  brain,  the 
central  ganglia,  where  there  is  a  bunch  or 
network  of  nerves  which  constitute  a  sort 
of  a  "receiving  and  clearing  house"  or 
lower  office  of  the  brain,  and  where  all 
automatic  actions  are  superintended  and 
disposed  of  without  calling  down  the  co- 
operation of  the  brain  for  every  detail. 
From  this  central  ganglia  this  mass  of 
wires,  or  nerves,  passes  on  upward  and  enters 
the  brain  with  its  myriads  of  cells  and 
fibrils.  When  an  impression  is  received, 
the  nerve  wave  throbs  the  message  to  the 
central  ganglia,  which  instantly  responds 
with  reflex  action,  and  then  this  nerve  wave 
passes  on  up  to  these  brain  nerves,  cells  and 

47 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

fibres,  the  current  either  leaping  from  fibril 
to  fibril,  or  making  these  fibrils  extend  and 
connect  with  one  another  until  the  impres- 
sion is  transmitted  when  they  retract  and 
disconnect  again.  It  is  the  leaping  of  this 
nerve  wave  from  fibril  to  fibril,  or  causing 
their  connection  and  disconnection,  and  the 
results  of  this  action  received  on  the  watery 
jelly  substance  around  the  nerves  that  pro- 
duces, physiologically,  our  consciousness. 
This  explains  many  mysteries  of  the  mind. 
The  reason  we  withdraw  an  injured  mem- 
ber from  the  object  that  is  hurting  it  before 
we  have  had  time  to  realize  what  has  hap- 
pened, is  because  the  central  ganglia  has 
received  the  pain  wave  and  answered  it  by 
instant  reflex  response,  before  the  wave  has 
travelled  on  and  up  to  the  brain  cells,  where 
we  afterwards  receive  it,  realize  what  has 
happened  and  reason  upon  the  occurrence. 
It  is  as  if  the  managers  in  a  large  firm  re- 
ceived news  in  their  office  on  the  second 
floor  of  an  opportunity  or  emergency  down- 
stairs, and  instantly  directed  what  was  to 
be  first  done,  and  then  telephoned  to  the 
private  office  of  the  two  proprietors  (the 
two  lobes  of  the  brain)  up-stairs  for  further 
instructions.    Many  of  the  tricks  of  habit, 

48 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

use,  custom,  and  that  mysterious  ability  of 
doing  two  distinct  and  difficult  things  at 
the  same  time,  such  as  playing  a  difficult 
piece  of  music  and  carrying  on  a  logical  con- 
versation, or  picking  one's  way  automatic- 
ally in  a  crowded  thoroughfare,  avoiding 
danger,  saluting  friends,  and  yet  all  the 
while  engrossed  in  some  abstruse  problem 
of  thought  so  that  one  has  almost  been  un- 
conscious of  what  has  been  going  on, — these 
are  seen  to  be  the  results  of  the  cerebrum's 
commissioning  automatic  action  to  be  done 
by  the  central  ganglia,  or  the  central  gan- 
glia having  acquired  the  ability  by  practice 
to  transact  these  directions,  so  that  the 
brain  is  left  free  to  pursue  other  trends  of 
thought,  giving  only  quiescent  sympathetic 
cooperation,  but  roused  to  active  coopera- 
tion in  emergencies. 

We  also  now  understand  the  mystery  of 
how  we  can  shut  off  other  knowledge  we 
possess  from  some  particular  line  of  thought 
we  are  engaged  in ;  how,  for  instance,  when 
we  study  mathematics  we  can  exclude  art, 
literature,  history  and  the  natural  sciences : 
also,  how  we  can  follow  association  of  ideas 
and  connected  trains  of  thought.  It  is  be- 
cause each  of  these  nerve  cells  of  the  brain 

49 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

with  its  hundreds  of  fibrils  is,  as  Dr.  H.  S. 
Williams  suggests,  like  a  central  telephone 
office,  the  fibrils  like  radiating  telephone 
wires,  disconnected  from  all  the  other  cells 
and  fibrils,  but  that  connect  with  these 
other  exchanges  when  stimulated,  and  thus 
transmit  their  communication.  When  these 
fibrils  are  lacking  there  is  no  consciousness, 
as  in  the  lowest  forms  of  life ;  when  they 
are  well  furnished  and  disciplined,  there  is 
the  highest  intelligence.  When,  then,  we 
follow  trains  of  thought  and  association  of 
ideas,  we  are,  physically,  making  these  con- 
nections between  cells  of  the  brain.  When 
we  cannot  recall  something  we  desire  to,  it 
is  because  we  are  unable,  for  the  time,  to 
connect  these  filaments  with  the  proper  cor- 
responding set.  When  after  long  effort  we 
fail  to  recall  the  word  or  idea  sought  and 
are  about  to  abandon  further  effort,  and  the 
idea  suddenly  flashes  before  our  conscious- 
ness, it  is  because  these  filaments  under 
stimulation  have  at  last  succeeded  in  mak- 
ing their  connections.  When  we  have  con- 
fusion of  ideas,  it  is  because  the  "  wires  are 
crossed."  When  we  have  facility,  clearness, 
logical  trend  of  reasoning,  it  is  because  we 
have  acquired  the  power  of  making  the 

50 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

proper  connections.  When,  after  infinite 
painstaking,  we  are  at  length  able  to  play 
sonatas,  converse  in  seven  languages,  or 
solve  intricate  problems  in  higher  calculus 
with  ease  and  rapidity,  doing  automatically 
what  at  each  step  of  progress  caused  such 
patient  severe  exertion,  it  is  because  by  the 
constant  use  of  certain  brain  cells  in  practice 
the  nerve  current  comes  to  establish  a  path 
which  it  follows  exclusively,  not  encounter- 
ing the  same  resistance  as  over  the  less  used 
area,  and  the  cells  acquire  greater  facility 
to  make  the  right  connections  of  fibrils 
more  quickly,  and  to  carry  on  the  series  of 
proper  connections  one  after  the  other. 

All  this  marvellous  mechanism  of  the 
brain  is  thus  understood ;  but  there  is  still 
a  deeper  question.  What  makes  all  this 
mechanism  work  ?  What  produces  the 
nerve  wave  or  current  that  produces  con- 
sciousness and  results  in  thought  ?  Until 
recently  science  always  answered, — the  mys- 
tery of  life.  But  to-day  it  goes  further  and 
seeks  to  find  of  what  this  wave  current  that 
is  received  and  transmitted  through  the 
nerves  is  composed.  And  after  a  series  of 
remarkable  experiments  with  nerves  and 
muscles  in  salt  solutions,  this  stimulus,  this 

Si 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

nerve  wave,  is  found  to  be  indisputably 
electrical  in  character  ;  for  the  solution  that 
is  able  to  make  an  excised  heart  beat  for 
hours,  and  nerves  and  muscles  twitch  and 
jerk  as  in  life,  is  found  to  be  capable  of  gen- 
erating a  current  of  electricity,  proving  that 
the  nerve  current  is  thus  electrical  in  nature. 
So  that  the  last  highest  answer  of  material 
science  to-day  is  that  consciousness,  thought, 
is  produced  by  nerve  stimulation  from  a 
current  electrical  in  character,  which  throbs 
through  the  myriads  of  brain  cells  and  fibrils 
connecting  and  disconnecting  them,  and,  as 
already  stated,  the  shock  of  this  connection 
and  disconnection  on  the  surrounding  watery 
jelly  substance  is  what  produces  conscious 
thought.  Some  scientists  even  go  a  step 
farther  and  claim  not  only  that  conscious- 
ness is  a  brain  product  but  character  as  well, 
that  misconduct,  physiologically  speaking, 
is  due  to  the  liberation  of  the  right  brain's 
activities  that  are  usually  held  in  check  by 
the  dominant  left  brain ;  and  Professor 
Flechsig  of  Leipsig  declares  that  character 
and  disposition  are  largely  decided  by  the 
smallness  or  largeness  of  what  is  called  the 
Kdrjperfuhlsphare,  moral  insensibility  of 
certain  criminals  being  due  to  the  diminu- 

52 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

tion  of  internal  pain  feeling  caused  by  the 
degeneration  of  this  extensive  anterior 
region,  and  a  normal  well-poised  character 
being  the  result  of  its  healthy  development. 
Now  then,  when  science  has  proved  such 
an  astounding  vital  connection  between 
consciousness  and  brain  matter,  showing 
how  each  phenomenon  corresponds  element 
for  element  to  special  parts  and  functions  of 
the  gray  matter,  must  we  then  conclude 
with  so  many  scientists  that  mind  is  con- 
terminous with  brain-function,  that  when 
the  producing  organ  perishes  consciousness 
must  cease  ?  Bv  no  means.  This  whole 
fallacy  results  from  not  discerning  one 
truth,  namely,  that  the  brain  simply  mani- 
fests consciousness,  not  produces  it.  All 
that  science  can  show  after  all,  in  all  these 
marvellous  inter-relations,  is  concurrence  of 
activity,  not  production  of  activity.  Grant- 
ing all  these  facts  of  the  intimate  depend- 
ence of  mind  on  brain,  yet  deeper  study 
reveals  the  fact  that  consciousness  being 
immaterial  is  not  produced  by  brain  matter 
but  preexists,  and  is  simply  limited  by  the 
brain.  It  uses  the  brain,  is  closely  depend- 
ent on  it  while  in  the  body,  but  is  itself  the 
master  not  the  product,  the  musician  not 

S3 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  music,  the  scientist  not  the  instrument. 
Destroying  the  harp  may  destroy  the  music 
but  it  does  not  destroy  the  living  musician 
who  used  the  harp,  who  produced  the  music, 
and  who  still  retains  his  musical  talent. 
Even  Spencer  himself  distinctly  declares 
that  the  conscious  soul  is  no  product  of  ma- 
terial particles  but  a  divine  effluence,  a  man- 
ifestation of  that  same  divine  energy  which 
is  manifested  throughout  the  universe.  As 
John  Stuart  Mill  truly  says,  these  thinkers 
"  should  remember  that  the  uniform  coex- 
istence of  one  fact  with  another  does  not 
make  the  one  fact  a  part  of  the  other  or  the 
same  with  it.  The  relation  of  thought  to 
the  brain  is  no  metaphysical  necessity,  but 
simply  a  constant  coexistence  within  the 
limits  of  observation." 

Way  back  in  Plato's  day,  this  same  dis- 
tinction was  clearly  discerned.  Socrates' 
disciples  asked  if  the  soul  is  the  harmony 
and  the  body  the  lyre,  how  there  can  be  any 
harmony  when  the  lyre  is  broken.  But 
Plato,  through  Socrates,  answers  that  the 
soul  is  not  the  harmony,  for  harmony  is 
the  result  whereas  the  soul  is  a  cause.  It 
is  rather  the  living  musician  who  uses  the 
body   to  produce  the  harmony.      More  or 

54 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

less  applies  to  harmony,  but  not  to  soul. 
One  can  have  part  of  a  harmony  and  part 
of  a  discord,  but  one  cannot  have  part  of 
a  soul  and  part  not  of  a  soul.  If  you  an- 
swer part  of  a  discord  is  not  harmony  and 
the  soul  must  be  like  pure  harmony,  you 
likewise  run  into  a  predicament, — for  then, 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  vice,  sin,  in- 
justice or  pain,  which  is  absurd.  The  soul, 
moreover,  proves  its  mastery  by  the  way  it 
commands,  fights,  disciplines  and  beats  the 
body  under,  demonstrating  thereby  that  it 
is  anterior,  causal  and  dominant.  Therefore 
the  soul  is  master,  the  lyre  servant. 

This  same  distinction,  as  old  as  Plato,  has 
recently  received  a  remarkable  confirmation. 
Three  of  the  greatest  living  scientists  have 
all  started  as  materialists  and  changed  in 
later  life  to  dualists.  They  have  vehemently 
maintained  in  youth  that  matter  produced 
and  ended  consciousness  ;  but  in  later  years 
of  wider  experience  and  more  mature  judg- 
ment they  have  all  three  taken  the  diamet- 
rically opposite  view  and  declared  that  the 
soul  is  a  distinct  principle  from  the  body. 
The  ablest  living  psychologist,  Wilhelm 
Wundt  of  Leipsig,  in  1863,  declared  in  his 
"  Lectures  on  human  and  animal  psychol- 

55 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

ogy,"  that  psychology  was  a  sub-section  of 
physics  and  the  soul  the  product  of  physio- 
logical functions.  In  1892  he  declared  ex- 
actly the  opposite,  that  psychology  is  a 
spiritual  not  a  physical  science,  the  soul  and 
body  two  distinct  principles,  confessing  in 
the  preface  to  his  modified  edition  that  he 
had  emancipated  himself  from  the  funda- 
mental errors  of  the  first,  and  that  he  had 
"  learned  many  years  ago  to  consider  the 
work  as  a  sin  of  his  youth,"  which  "  weighed 
on  him  as  a  kind  of  crime  from  which  he 
longed  to  free  himself  as  soon  as  possible." 
Rudolph  Virchow,  the  eminent  biologist,  the 
founder  of  cellular  pathology,  likewise,  in 
1849  declared  the  inseparable  connection  of 
spirit  and  body,  and  that  the  soul  was  a 
purely  mechanical  natural  phenomenon,  as- 
serting, "  I  am  convinced  that  I  shall  never 
find  myself  compelled  to  deny  the  thesis  of 
the  unity  of  human  nature;"  yet  twenty- 
eight  years  later,  in  his  address  on  "  The 
liberty  of  science  in  Modern  States,"  he 
takes  exactly  the  opposite  position,  declaring 
that  the  soul  is  a  distinct  principle  from  the 
body.  Emil  du  Bois-Keymond,  the  distin- 
guished Biologist  and  Secretary  of  the  Ber- 
lin Academy  of  Science,  also,  at  first  de- 

56 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

fended  materialism,  refuted  vitalism  and 
the  transcendental  view  of  life,  yet  com- 
pletely changed,  and  in  1872  in  his  famous 
"  Ignorabimus-Speech"  declared  conscious- 
ness to  be  an  insoluble  transcendental  prob- 
lem, opposing  consciousness  to  the  other 
functions  of  the  brain  as  a  supernatural 
phenomenon,  declaring  it  impossible  for 
philosophy  to  explain  the  "  world-enigma  " 
of  the  "  connection  of  matter  and  force,"  or 
the  problem  of  consciousness, — how  "  sub- 
stance comes,  under  certain  conditions,  to 
feel,  to  desire,  and  to  think."  Is  not  this  a 
remarkable  illustration  that  the  enthusiasm 
of  first  investigation  tends  to  make  one 
trust  first  appearances  and  to  think  that 
matter  produces  mind,  but  more  profound 
research  makes  one  look  through  appear- 
ances and  discern  a  principle  that  cannot  be 
produced  by  matter,  but  that  stands  as  an 
insoluble  problem  of  a  transcendental  char- 
acter. 

But  what  then  are  the  proofs  of  this  all- 
important  distinction  that  the  brain  mani- 
fests, not  produces,  consciousness?  First, 
that  man,  in  the  final  analysis  is  not  mere 
matter  but  spirit.  He  is,  in  essence,  not  a 
body,  but  a  mind,  a  free  will,  a  power,  a 

57 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

spiritual  personality,  an  immaterial  princi- 
ple, a  force.  It  is  not  so  much  the  body 
that  has  a  mind  as  it  is  the  mind  that  has  a 
body,  which  is  proved  by  the  overwhelming 
dominance  of  mind  over  matter.  Physi- 
cally man  is  a  degenerate  from  the  power- 
ful animals  that  preceded  him  except  in 
mind  development  which  places  him  at  the 
apex  of  the  series.  Each  one's  instinctive 
consciousness  convinces  him  of  the  irrefu- 
table truth  that  his  real  personality  is  a 
spiritual  entity,  not  a  material  product. 
No  matter  how  confused  by  abstruse  argu- 
ments, you  know  that  you  yourself  are  not 
the  house,  but  only  the  tenant  that  looks 
out  of  the  window.  You  are  not  flesh  and 
blood,  but  spirit  using  flesh  and  blood. 
Your  beloved  ones  are  no  more  their  bodies 
than  the  clothes  they  wear.  The  spirit 
within  witnesses  that  we  are  spirits  in  an 
earthly  tabernacle.  And  even  if  science 
does  push  back  its  inquiry  into  life  until  it 
declares  that  consciousness  is  the  result  of 
an  electric  nerve  wave  stimulating  brain 
cells  and  fibrils,  yet  what  generates  this 
electric  nerve  current  ?  Science  cannot  say 
that  the  body  produces  this,  for  what  causes 
it  to  start  or  stop  ?    Nor  can  it  say  that 

58 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

life  is  electricity,  for  then  by  its  use  we 
would  raise  the  dead  and  never  die.  It  can 
say  life  is  electrical  in  character,  and  thus 
far  can  it  go  but  no  farther ;  for  back  of  all 
this  electrical  nerve  wave  stands  life  itself. 
So  that  all  that  material  science  can  prove 
thus  far  is  how  life  acts,  not  what  produces 
life.  Our  spiritual  consciousness  therefore, 
being  our  real  personality,  is  seen  to  be  a 
force,  not  matter,  and  is  linked  with  the 
underlying  spirit  force  of  the  universe.  We 
now  know  that  all  the  forces  of  the 
universe,  heat,  light,  electricity,  electrical 
and  chemical  radiation  are  modes  of 
molecular  motion,  equivalent  and  trans- 
formable one  into  the  other,  changed  but 
never  lost.  Our  spiritual  consciousness  and 
personality  is  rather  linked  with  this  trans- 
mutation and  persistence  of  force  than  with 
the  material  atoms. 

But,  even  granting  that  consciousness  is 
an  immaterial,  spiritual  force,  yet  if  it  is 
produced  by  molecular  motion,  why  does  it 
not  stop  when  the  motion  stops?  It 
certainly  would,  were  this  the  case.  But 
higher  science  now  reveals  that  conscious- 
ness itself  is  not  produced  by  molecular 
motion,  but  only  accompanies  it,  existing 

59 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

itself  as  something  apart.  The  action  of 
molecular  motion  from  body  to  brain  and 
brain  to  body,  expires  in  vibrations  affect- 
ing consciousness  but  not  producing  it. 
The  conscious  state  itself  does  not  come  into 
the  physical  circuit,  which  is  complete  in 
itself.  It  remains  apart  and  is  only  the 
subjective  equivalent  of  the  vibration  within 
the  brain,  being  neither  the  cause  nor  the 
effect  of  the  motion,  but  simply  the  con- 
comitant. Just  as  the  current  rings  the 
telephone'  bell;  you  answer,  communicate 
and  the  transaction  ends.  You  have  been 
in  contact  with  the  circle;  you  have  re- 
ceived and  transmitted  impressions  and 
you  retain  the  results ;  but  you  are  not 
produced  by  the  current,  nor  do  you  perish 
when  the  whole  system  is  destroyed.  "  In 
other  words,"  says  John  Fiske,  "  the  natural 
history  of  the  mass  of  activities  that  are 
perpetually  being  concentrated  within  our 
bodies,  to  be  presently  once  more  dis- 
integrated and  diffused,  shows  us  a  closed 
circle  which  is  entirely  physical,  and  in 
which  one  segment  belongs  to  the  nervous 
system.  As  for  our  conscious  life,  that 
forms  no  part  of  the  closed  circle  but  stands 
entirely  outside  of  it,  concentric  with  the 

60 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

segment  which  belongs  to  the  nervous 
system."  Therefore  if  consciousness  simply 
accompanies  molecular  motion,  the  ceasing 
of  that  motion  does  not  imply  its  end,  while 
the  correlation  of  forces  implies  its  conserva- 
tion. 

But  there  are  still  many  other  proofs  that 
the  brain  is  not  our  real  self,  but  simply  the 
organ  of  self,  that  it  is  the  instrument  that 
is  used,  not  the  person  using  it,  that  it  is 
the  microscope  or  telescope  through  which 
we  see,  but  which  itself  does  not  do  the  see- 
ing. In  other  words,  as  the  highest  science 
expresses  it  to-day,  it  is  not  the  eye  that 
sees,  nor  the  ear  that  hears,  nor  the  tongue 
that  speaks.  It  is  consciousness  that  sees 
through  the  eye,  that  hears  through  the  ear, 
that  speaks  by  the  tongue.  A  striking  sci- 
entific corroboration  of  this  is  that  when 
consciousness  is  deprived  of  part  of  its  in- 
strument, it  makes  the  remaining  part  do 
the  whole  of  the  work,  thus  proving  that 
while  it  cooperates  with  the  brain,  it  is  yet 
something  that  is  to  a  degree  apart  from  the 
brain,  and  master  of  it.  If  the  brain  alone 
generated  thought,  then  destroying  half  the 
brain  would  destroy  half  the  capacity  of 
thought.    But  what    do    we    find?    That 

6i 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

when  half  the  brain  has  been  thus  destroyed 
by  disease  or  accident,  in  a  vast  number  of 
cases  the  whole  normal  thought  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  patient  is  retained.  "With  the 
exception  of  the  paralysis  of  a  few  muscles, 
the  complete  intelligence  remains.  Dr. 
Bichat  was  one  of  the  foremost  anatomists 
of  his  day,  yet  upon  his  death,  one  lobe  of 
his  brain  was  found  to  be  so  dwindled  as  to 
be  practically  useless,  and  it  was  thus  dis- 
covered that  his  consciousness  all  along  had 
been  compelling  half  of  his  brain  to  do  the 
whole  of  this  complete  high  mental  work. 
Dr.  Cruveillier  reports  the  case  of  an  emi- 
nently intelligent  citizen,  the  left  lobe  of 
whose  brain  was  found  to  be  entirely  des- 
troyed and  replaced  by  a  watery  substance, 
the  right  lobe  having  assumed  life's  com- 
plete normal  work.  The  skull  of  Phineas 
P.  Gage  is  now  in  the  Harvard  museum 
showing  where  a  crowbar  of  thirteen  and  a 
quarter  pounds  had  been  driven  by  a  blast- 
ing accident  through  the  frontal  region  of 
the  brain,  he,  however,  retaining  all  his  fac- 
ulties and  living  twelve  and  a-half  years 
after  the  accident.  Innumerable  similar 
medical  statistics  confirm  this  power  of  con- 
sciousness to  compel  part  of  its  instrument 

62 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

to  do  vicarious  work.  Now  when  the  D 
and  E  strings  of  a  violin  snap  and  half  the 
music  stops  intermittently,  you  know  that 
it  is  some  automatic  device ;  but  when  these 
same  strings  break,  and  you  hear  a  per- 
former continue  the  music  uninterruptedly, 
taking  a  higher  wrist  position  at  times  and 
compelling  the  two  remaining  strings  to 
supply  the  notes  of  the  missing  ones,  you 
know  that  he  is  an  independent  personality 
that  masters  his  instrument. 

Another  scientific  proof  of  the  domination 
of  consciousness  is  that  it  has  been  clearly 
proved  that  the  brain  does  not  operate  its 
functions  of  itself,  but  that  the  mind  teaches 
it  its  various  functions.  None  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  brain  are  natural.  They  are  all 
acquired.  For  instance,  the  brain  does  not 
teach  us  to  speak,  but  it  is  the  mind  that 
teaches  the  brain  to  speak.  The  ape  has  the 
same  convolutions  that  we  have  yet  he  does 
not  speak.  It  is  our  mind  that  compels  us 
to  acquire  these  accomplishments.  By  prac- 
tice, the  mind  teaches  the  occipital  lobe  to 
recognize  the  written  word;  the  temporal 
lobe,  the  spoken  word ;  the  frontal  convo- 
lutions to  form  the  spoken  word ;  the 
middle  third  convolution   to  compose   the 

63 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

written  word  ;  and  the  frontal  third  convo- 
lution to  remember.  Thus  reading  and 
writing  do  not  come  in  infancy.  They  are 
acquired  only  after  years  of  the  domination 
of  the  mind  over  the  brain  matter,  when 
our  will  has  carried  out  the  mind's  deter- 
mination to  make  the  different  parts  of  the 
brain  acquire  these  accomplishments,  at  first 
painfully  and  slowly,  afterwards  by  practice 
readily.  This  shows  that  the  brain  does  not 
generate  consciousness,  but  that  conscious- 
ness uses  the  brain  as  its  instrument  to  ful- 
fill its  wish. 

The  partially  independent  existence  of  con- 
sciousness during  sleep  confirms  this  same 
mastery  over  the  brain  matter.  For  one- 
third  of  our  existence,  we  know,  the  mind 
has  to  leave  the  body.  It  has  to  leave  only 
those  places  in  the  body  that  consciousness 
has  been  using.  Nothing  else  needs  sleep. 
Muscles  and  nerve-centres  in  themselves  do 
not  get  tired.  The  muscles  of  the  heart 
and  diaphragm,  the  processes  of  food  assim- 
ilation and  tissue  building  operate  by  invol- 
untary action  without  the  mind's  command- 
ing them.  Only  those  muscles  and  nerves 
become  exhausted  that  have  been  used  by 
the  mind,  and  consciousness  is  compelled  to 

64 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

go  away  and  leave  these  completely  in  order 
that  they  may  rest  and  the  waste  be  replen- 
ished. Sleep  is  not  perfect  sleep  unless  it  is 
entirely  unconscious.  What  then  has  be- 
come of  consciousness  ?  Has  it  come  to  an 
end  ?  If  so,  then  we  must  be  recreated  each 
time  that  we  awake,  which  is  absurd.  If 
not,  it  has  proved  its  existence  apart  from 
the  body  during  this  period,  being  capable 
of  returning  and  ruling  the  body  at  will. 
Likewise  with  anaesthetics  the  surgeon  can 
drive  away  our  consciousness  altogether 
from  our  body,  so  that  he  can  cut  or  burn 
us,  and  yet  consciousness  is  not  there  to  suf- 
fer, but  returns  after  the  operation  showing 
it  has  survived.  So  far  as  consciousness 
alone  is  concerned,  the  chloroformed  patient 
or  corpse  seems  the  same  during  the  interval, 
in  the  one  case  consciousness  having  gone 
for  a  time,  in  the  other  for  good.  Now 
when  the  rider  dismounts  from  his  jaded 
steed,  placing  the  wearied  brute  in  the  sta- 
ble, only  to  remount,  master  and  spur  him 
on  the  next  morning,  no  one  would  think 
that  the  horse  produced  the  rider,  or  that 
the  rider  could  not  exist  without  the  horse. 

Even  when  consciousness  partly  returns 
in  dreams,  the  vivid  reality  of  dreams  while 

65 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  body  is  asleep  adds  its  weight  towards 
the  brain  manifesting  not  producing  con- 
sciousness. For  to  be  able  to  see  often  as 
realistically  as  when  awake  yet  without  the 
eye,  to  hear  without  the  ear,  to  feel  with- 
out the  touch,  to  talk  without  the  tongue 
shows  the  sentient  principle  is,  at  least, 
somewhat  independent  of  the  sleeping  stu- 
pefied body. 

Also  the  fact  that  consciousness  retains 
its  identity  and  the  continuity  of  its  impres- 
sions, although  all  the  matter  of  the  body 
is  constantly  changing,  places  this  same  em- 
phasis on  the  side  of  its  domination  over 
matter;  for  we  know  that  the  man  of 
eighty  recalls  the  details  of  his  youth  al- 
though in  the  meantime  he  has  had  over 
eleven  bodies  and  even  a  larger  number  of 
totally  renewed  brains.  The  matter  of 
brain  and  body  is,  scientifically,  like  the 
flowing  river,  continually  rolling  away  and 
being  replaced  by  new  material,  but  con- 
sciousness seems  to  be  like  the  separate  per- 
sonality of  a  fisherman  who  stretches  his 
net,  retains  the  products  of  the  river  while 
the  flood  itself  flows  on  and  is  lost.  Like- 
wise, the  preternatural  activity  of  the  mind 
in  extreme  danger,  as  in  drowning  or  falling 

66 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

from  a  height,  and  the  luminous  state  fre- 
quently preceding  death  in  which  the  body- 
lies  exhausted,  almost  dead,  yet  the  mind 
remains  clearer  and  stronger  than  ever, — 
add  their  emphasis  to  the  dominance  of 
mind  over  body. 

All  these  different  glimpses  show  us  that 
it  is  consciousness  that  is  the  master,  not 
the  brain  matter.  There  used  to  be  a  strong 
phase  of  philosophy  and  science  that  re- 
versed this,  that  claimed  that  all  knowledge 
is  the  result  of  sensation ;  that  all  the  stu- 
pendous achievements  of  the  human  intellect 
are  the  result  only  of  eye,  ear,  nose,  tongue 
and  hand ;  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  in- 
tellect that  was  not  first  in  the  senses.  But 
Liebnitz  answered, — True  there  is  nothing 
in  the  intellect  that  was  not  first  in  the 
senses,  except  the  intellect  itself.  But  how 
account  for  that?  Then  Kant  continued 
the  demonstration  showing  that  the  mind 
has  an  equipment  of  powers,  laws  and  con- 
ditions antecedent  to  sensation,  that  the 
mind  is  only  awakened  by  the  stimulus  of 
outward  things,  and  then  puts  forth  its 
latent  powers,  using,  educating  the  senses, 
and  thus  producing  knowledge,  the  senses 
alone    being    helpless    without   the  latent 

67 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

power  of  consciousness  that  underlies  all 
acquirement  of  knowledge. 

Yet  still  the  question  arises  in  every 
thoughtful  heart,  how  can  a  brainless  soul 
think?  On  what  basis  will  consciousness 
be  able  to  act  when  separated  from  brain 
matter  ?  The  only  way  we  know  it  here  is 
through  its  using  brain,  nerve  and  muscle. 
What  will  be  its  medium,  its  instrument 
when  separated  from  the  human  organism  ? 
Or,  as  the  early  scientists  used  to  ask  St. 
Paul, — "  With  what  body  do  they  come  ?  " 
To  St.  Paul  such  a  question  seemed  foolish 
because  it  is  absurd  to  think  there  can  be 
any  limit  to  God's  power,  or  that  it  is  not 
easy  enough  for  Him  to  give  to  the  soul  a 
body  as  it  shall  please  Him,  just  as  He  has 
already  given  different  organizations  to  life 
in  the  seemingly  contradictory  localities  of 
water,  land  and  air,  and  different  forms  to 
matter  is  space.  And  just  as  the  death  of 
the  wheat  reappearing  in  the  grain  shows 
life  through  death,  identity  through  total 
change,  so  the  dynamic  force  of  conscious- 
ness will  survive  only  retaining  its  type  in 
a  glorified  form. 

But  still,  inquiring  reason  does  not  doubt 
so  much  the  Creator's  power,  as  it  seeks  to 

68 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

obtain  some  faint  idea  of  how  this  power 
works  out  this  apparently  unimaginable 
problem  of  disembodied  consciousness.  We 
must,  however,  fully  realize  that  it  is 
obviously  impossible  for  us  to  understand 
the  properties  of  a  spiritual  sphere  into 
which  we  have  not  entered  and  which  is 
totally  dissimilar  to  any  of  which  we  have 
had  any  experience ;  yet  there  are  neverthe- 
less possibilities  that  can,  at  least,  be  sur- 
mised. Consciousness,  during  its  sojourn  in 
the  body,  may  possess  undisclosed  powers 
and  endowments  whereby  it  is  prepared  to 
exist  independently  hereafter  without  the 
use  of  the  senses.  Or  again,  consciousness 
may  be  reclothed  with  a  spiritual  body,  of 
which  as  St.  Paul  says,  the  present  one 
furnishes  only  the  dynamic  force,  and  thus 
be  able  to  express  itself  through  this  spirit- 
ual body.  Every  organism,  as  Joseph  Cook 
urges,  is  built  by  a  life  principle  which  is 
made  to  exist  before  it,  and  therefore  may 
be  made  to  exist  after  it,  reproducing  an 
organism  for  itself,  just  as  the  decaying 
fruit  holds  within  itself  the  kernel  that  con- 
tains the  organism  of  the  future  tree.  That 
the  dynamic  force  of  our  spiritual  life  will 
thus  survive  and  reproduce  its  appropriate 

69 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

organism  becomes  most  probable  when  we 
see  it  developed  into  moral  character  and 
linked  with  the  great  moral  Being  of  the 
universe.  When  then  we  return  to  our 
fundamental  distinction  and  see  that  con- 
sciousness is  not  brain  product  but  brain 
master,  we  obtain  inklings,  at  least,  of  how 
it  may  possess  latent  powers  to  exist  inde- 
pendently, or  how  it  may  carry  on  its 
ethereal  transcendental  vitality  to  some 
spiritual  reclothing  which  will  serve  as  its 
appropriate  instrument. 

Mysterious  ?  Yes ;  but  not  more  so  than 
many  accepted  scientific  facts  of  to-day, 
such  as  the  theories  of  gravitation,  atoms, 
energy,  vibration  and  cells.  If  an  atom  of 
sodium  can  survive  the  destruction  of  salt, 
water,  bread,  digestion,  assimilation,  circu- 
lation, and  yet  retain  every  one  of  its  prop- 
erties intact,  why  not  the  vital  dynamic 
force  of  consciousness  ?  If  a  grain  of  musk 
can  give  out  from  itself  particles  enough  to 
fill  a  large  room  for  months,  and  yet  be  not 
itself  diminished  in  the  most  infinitesimal 
degree,  why  may  not  the  subtle  soul  survive 
its  apparent  waste  ?  Is  the  change  at  death 
much  greater  than  the  decomposition  of 
water  from  a  beautiful,  refreshing,  spark- 

70 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

ling  liquid  into  an  inflammable,  noxious,  in- 
visible gas  and  into  a  solid  body  combined 
with  iron  ?  Yet  none  of  these  elements  are 
lost.  Every  day  scientists  accept  sub- 
stances as  existing  that  seem  to  the  senses 
to  be  entirely  annihilated.  If  a  chemist 
can  take  a  silver  cup,  drop  it  in  nitric  acid 
and  make  it  entirely  disappear,  and  yet  by 
introducing  copper,  precipitate  the  silver  to 
the  bottom,  extract,  melt,  mold  it,  and 
hand  you  back  your  original  cup  unaltered, 
is  it  incredible  to  maintain  that  the  great 
Chemist  of  the  universe  can  do  as  much  ? 
If  you  enter  a  darkened  room  where  a  ray 
of  light  falls  on  black  you  see  nothing. 
Would  you  say  therefore  the  light  in  that 
room  does  not  exist?  If  so,  place  an 
orange  in  its  track,  and  the  room  is  at  once 
suffused  with  a  yellow  glow,  revealing  the 
constant  presence  of  what  the  senses  would 
say  was  non-existent.  Likewise  the  photo- 
graphic plate  reveals  stars  the  eye  can 
never  see ;  the  microphone,  sounds  the  ear 
can  never  hear ;  the  bolometer,  sensitive- 
ness the  skin  can  never  detect.  Every- 
where science  teaches  that  the  amount  of 
knowledge  we  can  apprehend  through  our 
little  limited  senses  is  as  nothing  compared 

n 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

to  the  vast  realm  that  transcends  them,  and 
that  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy. 
Nothing  is  more  preposterous  than  to 
disbelieve  the  survival  of  disembodied  con- 
sciousness because  one  cannot  fully  com- 
prehend it,  when  we  are  believing  in  and 
accepting  mysteries  of  the  universe  all 
around  us  of  which  we  know  absolutely 
nothing.  One  might  as  well  say  that  he 
will  not  believe  in  electricity  because  he 
can  know  nothing  whatever  of  its  real 
nature.  Or  explain  if  you  can  how  waves 
of  ether  called  light  and  heat,  penetrate,  co- 
operate with  and  color  solids,  fluids  and 
gases,  or  pass  through  solid  ponderous  sub- 
stances as  though  they  existed  not,  or  throb 
an  ethereal  message  around  the  globe  ?  It 
is  absolutely  inconceivable  that  every  violet 
ray  is  composed  of  six  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  thousand  billions  of  oscillations  per 
second,  and  that  each  ray  of  light  crosses 
and  recrosses  all  other  rays  of  light  its 
entire  length  and  yet  arrives  unobstructed 
in  a  direct  line.  Science  does  more;  it 
often  accepts  apparent  contradictions  that 
are  inexplicable.  Acids,  alkali  and  water 
are    known    to    possess    intense    chemical 

72 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

affinity,  strong  reciprocal  attraction,  rush- 
ing together  to  combine  when  united.  Yet 
by  galvanic  electricity  and  asbestos,  scien- 
tists can  make  a  cup  of  acid  and  a  cup 
of  alkali,  exchange  places,  passing  each 
other  en  route,  traversing  a  cup  of  water 
placed  between,  all  three  substances  in  con- 
stant contact  yet  without  combining.  The 
mode  of  this  contradiction,  this  suspension 
of  chemical  affinity,  is  an  absolute  enigma. 
Or  explain,  if  you  can,  the  mystery  of  that 
most  recently  discovered  element,  Kadium, 
which  gives  off  heat  and  penetrative  light 
without  combustion,  waste,  or  chemical 
change.  The  very  foundation  stone  of 
modern  science  is  the  law  of  the  conserva- 
tion of  energy,  that  no  work  can  be  done 
without  the  expenditure  of  an  equal  amount 
of  energy  ;  yet  here  is  a  substance  in  hand, 
that  continues  to  generate  heat  and  light, 
continually  emitting  a  stream  of  material 
particles  or  corpuscles,  without  the  apparent 
aid  of  any  external  source  of  energy  what- 
ever. Yet  physicists  are  accepting,  experi- 
menting with  and  utilizing  this  direct  con- 
tradiction of  their  laws,  totally  unable  to 
explain  its  mystery.  Again,  colorless  fluids, 
by  the  addition  of  acids  can  be  changed 

73 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

to  black,  then  rechanged  to  transparent,  but 
how  this  elective  affinity  in  acids,  metal 
and  alkali,  causes  alternately  this  absorp- 
tion and  transmission  of  light,  we  have  no 
conception  whatever.  Or  who  can  explain 
how  each  piece  of  a  large  magnet  that 
has  been  broken  into  a  thousand  pieces, 
becomes  itself  a  little  magnet,  possessing 
both  poles,  lifting  many  times  its  own 
weight,  attracting  iron  no  matter  what  sub- 
stances intervene,  communicating  itself  by 
contact  without  losing  its  own  energy,  and 
when  suspended  pointing  in  the  same  direc- 
tion that  all  the  other  fragments  indicate  ? 
Who  can  explain  the  mysteries  of  gravi- 
tation, the  processes  of  nourishment  and 
growth  of  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms, 
the  organs  of  sensation,  the  method  of 
perception,  or  the  origin  of  life?  All  the 
advancement  of  science  as  to  the  inde- 
structibility of  atoms,  the  equivalence  and 
correlation  of  forces  seems  to  make  the  sur- 
vival of  consciousness  in  keeping  with  na- 
ture's subtle  mysteries. 

Science  has  long  ago  learned  that  reason 
must  look  through  appearances.  The  earth 
appears  to  be  flat ;  the  sun,  to  revolve  around 
the  earth ;  and  for  ages  humanity  followed 

74 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

these  first  impressions.  But  reason  soon 
learned  it  must  triumph  over  sense,  and 
look  through  semblances  to  the  realit3r. 
Death  appears  to  end  all,  but  reason  through 
a  thousand  indications  learns  to  look  through 
death  and  to  see  life  beyond.  If  then,  we 
accept  mysteries  equally  surprising  in  nature 
all  around  us,  why  should  we  hesitate  to 
accept  the  survival  of  consciousness  from  a 
myriad  of  predictions,  simply  because  we 
cannot  comprehend  the  method?  "There 
is,"  says  Victor  Hugo,  "  we  are  aware,  a 
philosophy  that  denies  the  Infinite.  There 
is  also  a  philosophy,  classed  pathologically, 
which  denies  the  sun;  this  philosophy  is 
called  blindness.  To  set  up  our  lack  of 
sense  as  a  source  of  truth  is  a  fine  piece 
of  blind  man's  assurance." 

The  second  great  scientific  argument  for 
the  survival  of  consciousness  after  brain 
dissolution  arises  from  the  stupendous  reve- 
lation of  the  law  of  evolution.  At  first  this 
vast  process  of  the  universe  was  thought  to 
argue  against  immortality.  When  human- 
ity learned  that  the  universe  instead  of  be- 
ing created  at  one  time  substantially  as  it 
now  exists,   was    slowly  evolved  through 

75 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

countless  ages,  planets  from  nebulous  mat- 
ter, all  living  organisms  including  man  from 
a  few  primitive  forms  of  life,  or  from  one, 
with  modification  or  variation,  through  the 
struggle  for  existence,  natural  selection, 
survival  of  the  fittest, — it  asked  in  alarm, 
where  then  is  there  place  for  the  soul  ? 
Man  is  simply  an  evolved  animal  by  natural 
process!  But  deeper  science  has  revealed 
the  place  for  the  soul.  One  party  of  evolu- 
tionists claims  that  man's  body  came  by 
evolution,  but  at  a  certain  stage,  his  soul 
was  placed  in  his  body  by  a  separate  inde- 
pendent act  of  God.  This  view  is  not  at  all 
contrary  to  the  true  meaning  of  evolution ; 
for,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  atheistical  evolution.  For  evolution  is 
simply  a  process.  A  process  is  something 
necessarily  finite  with  a  beginning  and  an 
end.  Even  if  you  declare  that  all  the  po- 
tentiality of  the  universe  and  its  subsequent 
development  were  contained  in  a  primitive 
prothyle  substance,  yet  the  mere  existence 
of  this  prothyle  implies  a  prior  agent,  its 
creative  cause.  And  intelligence  is  revealed 
in  both  this  primordial  force  and  also  in  the 
process ;  for  otherwise  how  explain  the  de- 
velopment by  orderly  types  instead  of  by 

76' 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

haphazard,  one  germ  producing  a  fish,  an- 
other, undistinguishable  from  it,  producing  a 
man,  or  how  explain  the  logical  order  of 
this  creative  energy  that  takes  nature  for- 
ward in  progressively  higher  manifestations 
of  itself,  rising  consistently  through  all  king- 
doms to  man,  and  through  man  to  spirit. 
Evolution  thus  necessitates  intelligence ;  in- 
telligence, Deity ;  and  the  whole  process  is 
seen  to  be  but  the  working  out  of  the 
method  and  purpose  of  Deity.  Therefore 
it  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  scheme  to 
claim  that  the  Creator,  who  is  back  of  this 
vast  process,  could  have  breathed  into  man 
the  immortal  soul  at  the  right  point  of 
physical  development. 

But  the  other  group  of  evolutionists  ob- 
jects to  this  view,  declaring  man's  whole 
being  must  come  from  evolution,  that  it  is 
not  logical  to  think  of  the  Creator  as  break- 
ing into  the  vast  process  for  soul  creation. 
If  this  be  true,  we  have  only  to  realize 
that  God  prearranged  such  a  result.  And 
many  devout  scientists  hold  with  Le  Conte 
that  man's  soul  as  well  as  his  body  is  given 
through  the  process  of  evolution ;  that  from 
the  chemical  and  physical  forces  of  nature 
the  lower  forms  of  life  were  developed; 

77 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

from  these,  the  conscious  spirit  of  animals ; 
from  this,  the  spirit  of  man  ;  and  this  spirit 
of  man  at  a  certain  stage  acquired  the 
quality  of  immortality,  obtaining  sufficient 
energy  and  concentration  to  survive  phys- 
ical dissolution.  Nor  is  this  at  all  improba- 
ble on  the  basis  of  what  evolution  has 
already  accomplished.  The  distance  be- 
tween an  ascidian  and  a  Shakespeare  seems 
almost  as  great  as  that  between  limited  and 
unlimited  existence.  If  that  animal  inter- 
mediate between  vertebrate  and  inverte- 
brate can  evolve  mind,  then  mind  may, 
somewhere  along  the  process,  acquire  the 
quality  of  continuance.  If  sublime  moral 
feeling  can  be  evolved  from  a  sea-squirt,  the 
quality  of  continuance  can  surely  be 
evolved  from  ethereal  spirit.  "In  the 
course  of  evolution,"  says  Fiske,  "  there  is 
no  more  philosophical  difficulty  in  man's 
acquiring  immortal  life  than  in  his  acquir- 
ing the  erect  posture  and  articulate  speech." 
So  whichever  view  is  held, — that  the  soul's 
creation  is  an  independent  act,  or  a  develop- 
ment from  the  process, — there  is  room  for 
immortality  in  either  hypothesis. 

But  furthermore,  the  old  view  of  evolu- 
tion used  to  declare  that  man  came  by  evo- 

78 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

lution ;  to-day,  it  is  found  to  be  better 
science  to  say  that  evolution  came  by  man. 
That  is  to  say,  the  object,  purpose,  goal  of 
the  whole  vast  scheme  from  the  beginning 
was  the  perfection  of  humanity  ;  and  just 
as  one  says  the  base  of  a  monument  is 
erected  for  its  statue,  so  one  says  evolution 
was  made  for  man  as  its  crown  and  con- 
summation. Studying  its  process  thus  far, 
we  see  that  its  system  has  been  that  of  pro- 
gressive development  towards  higher  and 
higher  forms  of  life,  conserving  all  past 
excellence  and  gradually  acquiring  more, 
rising  through  inorganic  and  organic  up  to 
life  and  consciousness  until  man  is  reached. 
Then  this  same  process  continues  in  man, 
making  towards  that  which  is  the  highest 
in  him,  that  which  differentiates  him  from 
all  the  rest  of  creation,  his  rational  and 
moral  nature ;  the  evolution  of  mind  emerg- 
ing gradually  in  conscious  identity,  reason, 
intelligence,  the  conviction  of  freedom,  self- 
government,  self-improvement,  moral  re- 
sponsibility, until  it  reaches  its  highest 
plane  of  sympathy,  love,  self-sacrifice. 
What  then  is  the  clear  final  purpose  of  this 
process  ?  Merely  race  development  ?  Each 
generation  rising  to  a  higher  plane  of  intelli- 

79 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

gence  and  morality  ?  This  is  undoubtedly 
part  of  the  object,  but  not  all ;  for,  science 
declares  that  in  time  to  come  the  earth  and 
all  its  civilization  will  become  extinct,  and 
if  only  race  development  were  sought,  there 
being  no  race  surviving,  this  process  which 
reveals  such  logical  order  and  reason  all 
along  its  course  would  suddenly  end  in 
nothingness.  Therefore  we  see  that  the 
clear  object  of  this  process  is  the  develop- 
ment of  the  highest  possibilities  of  man, 
namely  his  perfection.  His  evolution  thus 
far  from  selfish  brutality  to  sympathetic 
self-sacrifice  shows  that  this  world  stands  as 
only  the  first  stage  towards  this  absolute 
perfection.  And  right  here  is  where  science 
and  religion  are  seen  to  harmonize.  Science 
all  along  indicates  that  the  ultimate  goal  is 
man's  spiritual  perfection ;  yet,  struggle  as 
she  will,  she  cannot  fulfill  this  ideal.  At 
this  point,  religion  then  comes,  brings  man 
in  touch  with  spiritual  realities,  which  in- 
spire, guide  and  help  him  towards  that  ideal. 
Science  brings  man  to  the  base  of  the  Him- 
alayas, shows  him  the  path  and  the  snow- 
capped summits  of  eternal  purity  above  the 
clouds,  but  can  take  him  only  a  short  dis- 
tance up  the  steep,  where  he  falls  down 

80 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

helpless.  Then  comes  religion  to  take  his 
hand,  lift  him  up,  strengthen  and  guide 
him  so  that  he  may  continue  his  climb  up- 
ward even  through  the  clouds  of  death  to 
the  final  attainment  of  all  that  science  fore- 
saw but  could  not  realize.  It  is  one  process 
of  evolution  with  science  and  religion  co- 
operating towards  a  common  consummation. 
Looking  back  then  over  this  vast  reasona- 
ble process,  can  it  be  conceived  of  as  possible 
that  all  this  logical  consummation  will  be 
blasted,  annihilated,  and  end  in  an  infinite 
insane  chaos  ?  Can  reason  think  it  probable 
for  an  instant,  that  this  whole  universe  has 
labored  painfully  forward  with  such  vast 
tremendous  processes  through  these  long 
weary  ages  upon  ages  towards  man  and  his 
perfection  simply  to  let  him  gasp  his  four- 
score years  and  ten,  never  completely  real- 
izing his  ideals  or  possibilities,  and  then  be 
swept  into  a  hole  in  the  ground  forever  ? 
If  it  is  incredible  to  think  of  Palissy  strug- 
gling desperately  through  terrible  disheart- 
ening years  of  poverty  and  defeat  to  perfect 
a  piece  of  enamelled  earthenware  only  for 
the  purpose,  when  finally  achieved,  at  such 
tremendous  toil,  patience,  perseverance  and 
sacrifice,  of  deliberately  dashing  it  to  pieces, 

81 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

how  much  more  incredible  to  think  of  a 
Creator  laboring  up  through  millions  of 
years  to  produce  His  masterpiece  of  man 
only  to  crush  him  quickly  into  annihilation ! 
"  Will  you,"  asks  Emerson,  "  with  vast  pains 
and  care  educate  your  children  to  produce 
a  masterpiece,  and  then  shoot  them  down  ?  " 
Thus  the  vastness  of  the  past  effort  of  the 
whole  system  becomes  a  pledge  of  man's 
continuance. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  clearly  re- 
vealed law  of  evolution  is  the  conservation 
of  excellence.  But  the  highest,  choicest 
product  of  the  whole  creation  is  man's  moral 
nature.  How  then  can  this  law  fail  to  gar- 
ner its  most  precious  product  ?  Will  crea- 
tion conserve  excellence  jealously  all  down 
the  ages  only  to  throw  away  wantonly  this 
final  highest  product?  Yet,  some  reply, 
it  may  garner  virtue  by  handing  it  down 
through  successive  generations,  thus  giving 
it  an  earthly  immortality  without  any  need 
of  a  spiritual  one.  But  one  comprehensive 
glance  of  the  universe  reveals  the  falsity  of 
this  view.  For,  as  already  shown,  science 
declares  that  in  time  all  the  inhabitants  of 
the  universe  will  be  dead,  the  universe  itself 
only  a  mass  of  whirling  cinders.    What  then 

82 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

would  be  the  real  harvest?  Nothing  but 
ashes.  Is  it  credible  that  this  titanic  ter- 
rific labor  has  been  put  forth  all  these  ages 
simply  to  reap  dead  cinders  instead  of  har- 
vesting all  along  its  process  myriads  of 
perfected  spirits  ? 

There  is  still  another  method  of  turning 
the  argument.  The  object  of  evolution  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  man's  perfection, — the  per- 
fection of  the  individual  and  society.  But 
the  limitations  of  our  physical  organisms 
and  environment,  make  that  absolute  full 
perfection  unattainable  here.  It  can  be 
continually  more  nearly  approximated  unto, 
but  never  completely  realized.  Therefore 
the  completion  of  this  process  points  to  this 
perfecting  of  the  individual  and  society 
hereafter.  Otherwise  we  would  have  the 
same  apparently  rational  system  all  through 
the  ages,  absolutely  defeated  at  its  culmi- 
nating point.  For  either  man  is  immortal 
or  the  universe  a  failure.  Man's  body  is 
nearly  perfect,  but  his  mental  and  moral 
possibilities  only  in  process.  Were  evolu- 
tion to  end  here,  we  would  have  a  perfect 
scaffolding  with  only  a  half -built  temple. 
If  man  perishes  in  death  he  is  the  consum- 
mate failure  of  creation.     The  entire  process 

83 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

is  but  a  vast  century-plant  that  yields  no 
flower.  "Without  spirit  immortality,"  says 
Le  Conte,  "  this  beautiful  cosmos  which  has 
been  developing  into  increasing  beauty  for 
so  many  millions  of  years,  when  its  evolu- 
tion has  run  its  course  and  all  is  over,  would 
be  precisely  as  if  it  had  never  been, — an  idle 
dream,  an  idiot  tale  signifying  nothing." 

There  is  therefore  no  middle  ground  be- 
tween these  alternatives.  Evolution  must 
either  stop,  or  fail,  or  we  must  live  here- 
after. The  countless  ages  past,  the  astound- 
ing achievements  thus  far  accomplished,  are 
pledges  that  it  will  neither  stop  nor  fail. 
Therefore  we  must  go  on  to  the  complete 
spiritual  perfection.  We  must  either  choose 
an  unthinkable  universe  of  confusion  with- 
out method  or  meaning,  or  the  evolution- 
ist's harmonious  progressive  development 
moving  on  to  its  fruition  in  immortality. 
All  the  sciences  are  constructed  upon  the 
conviction  that  the  universe  is  an  order,  an 
expression  of  intelligence.  They  would  be 
instantly  thrown  into  confusion  were  it  sup- 
posed that  creation  is  a  wild  chaos.  If  then 
creation  has  been  proved  to  be  a  logical  in- 
telligent order  all  through  its  course  it 
cannot  prove  to  be  chaotic  insanity  at  its 

84 


The  Predictions  of  Science 

climax.  The  intelligent  order  of  the  whole 
universe  thus  implies  man's  immortality. 
"  The  summum  bonum  then  practically," 
says  Kant,  "  is  only  possible  on  the  suppo- 
sition of  the  immortality  of  the  soul." 

Looking  back  then  over  the  whole  field 
of  science  as  to  its  predictions  upon  the 
problem  of  immortality,  we  see  that  the 
materialistic  declaration  that  future  exist- 
ence is  an  impossibility,  is  an  absolutely 
worthless  assumption;  that  the  agnostic 
answer  that  there  is  no  evidence  either  way, 
is  true  only  of  strictly  physical  science,  and 
even  in  that  domain  the  way  is  left  open, 
and  hope  not  forbidden;  that  the  answer 
of  brain  investigation  shows  that  conscious- 
ness is  not  a  brain  product  but  a  brain  con- 
comitant, that  it  masters  the  brain  matter 
and  predicts  its  survival  after  brain  dissolu- 
tion ;  and  that  the  answer  from  all  the 
different  phases  of  evolution  is  that  the 
whole  logic  of  the  reasonableness  of  the 
universe  imperatively  demands  man's  sur- 
vival hereafter. 


85 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 


Ill 

THE  PREDICTIONS  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

We  have  seen,  thus,  that  faith  strength- 
ens herself  even  in  the  domain  of  hard,  cold 
science  by  realizing  that  there  are  no  proofs 
against  immortality,  that  the  way  is  cleared 
for  it  by  consciousness  being  only  a  brain 
concomitant  with  many  revelations  of  mas- 
tery, while  evolution  throws  its  tremendous 
argument  from  all  the  reasonableness  of  the 
universe  into  a  positive  prediction  of  man's 
living  hereafter.  Faith  then  moves  forward 
into  the  next  great  department  of  human 
thought, — Philosophy.  To  many  this  de- 
partment is  the  most  decisive  of  the  three, 
as  they  exclude  immortality  from  science  as 
being  irrelevant  to  its  domain,  and  refuse 
to  accept  any  supernatural  revelation,  and 
therefore  wish  to  argue  the  possible  pre- 
dictions on  wholly  philosophical  grounds. 
In  one  sense  philosophy  covers  all  three 
departments  of  human  thought,  for  a  "  love 
of  wisdom  "  means  in  general  the  organized 

89 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

sum  of  all  highest  truth,  the  complete  sci- 
ence of  things  human,  a  comprehensive 
synthesis  of  man  in  relation  to  the  universe. 
Yet  there  are  certain  branches  of  meta- 
physics, psychology,  logic  and  speculative 
knowledge  that  constitute  a  separated  prov- 
ince. "What  then  are  some  of  the  predic- 
tions of  immortality  from  this  vast  realm  ? 
What  are  the  conclusions  of 

"  The  faith  that  looks  through  death 
In  years  that  bring  the  philosophic  mind." 

Foremost  stands  the  reason  founded  on 
the  universality  of  this  belief.  All  men, 
with  few  exceptions,  in  all  places,  at  all 
times  have  believed  in  a  future  existence. 
This  conviction  is  as  old  and  as  broad  as  the 
human  race,  is  spontaneous,  independent, 
and  strong  even  when  underived  from  reve- 
lation, tradition  or  authority.  It  belongs, 
as  Cicero  says,  to  those  great  truths  that 
are  born  with  us.  It  is  not,  as  some  say,  a 
development  from  primitive  man's  elabora- 
tion of  dreams  and  ghosts,  but  these  were 
rather  the  result  of  this  irrepressible  self- 
assertion  of  consciousness  that  could  not 
feel    itself    non-existent.      Moreover,    the 

90 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

widely  differing  ideals  of  the  future  world 
ranging  from  Happy  Hunting  Ground  to 
Paradise,  from  Walhalla  to  Nirvana  show 
that  this  conviction  was  not  borrowed  from 
race  to  race,  but  sprang  up  independently 
and  indigenously  in  each  race  all  over  the 
globe.  The  conceptions  differ  as  to  the 
condition,  but  agree  as  to  the  fact,  show- 
ing that  this  belief  is  a  profound  instinctive 
conviction  that  reveals  itself  as  having  been 
implanted  by  the  Creator  in  every  individ- 
ual's heart.  Also  the  fact  that  the  race 
commenced  to  challenge  and  question  this 
belief  only  in  later  periods  when  self-con- 
sciousness had  developed,  instead  of  dis- 
proving, simply  shows  that  the  race  had 
not  done  so  before  and  therefore  that  it  was 
an  original  instinct.  Cicero  mentions  in 
surprise  that  "  there  were  some  in  his  day 
who  had  begun  to  doubt  of  immortality," 
as  though  it  was  strange  that  such  a  uni- 
versal conviction  should  be  doubted. 

Now  thoughtful  scholars  have  sometimes 
rejected  this  argument  from  universality 
of  belief,  because  they  have  not  stopped 
to  discriminate  its  distinguishing  features. 
Universality,  in  itself,  it  is  true,  is  no 
proof;   for  we  well   know  that   all   men 

9i 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

have  at  times  believed  in  fallacies,  such 
as  the  world's  being  flat,  the  sun  revolv- 
ing around  the  earth,  and  the  universe 
being  instantaneously  created.  Nor  is  an- 
tiquity a  proof,  for  superstitions  are  old ; 
yet  when  superstitions  have  survived  for 
ages,  this  survival  has  been  secured  not  by 
their  fallacy,  but  by  the  core  of  truth  they 
contained.  Yet  the  difference  in  this  argu- 
ment consists  in  that  wherever  universal 
belief  is  based  on  a  fallacy,  it  is  in  time  re- 
futed or  altered,  whereas  this  belief  in  im- 
mortality has  never  changed  since  the  dawn 
of  history,  but  only  progressed,  developed, 
strengthened  and  been  continually  elevated 
and  refined  with  all  the  advancement  of 
man,  attaining  its  maximum  among  the 
highest  races  of  mankind,  being  strongest  in 
the  best,  wisest  and  most  spiritual  of  the 
race.  Not  only  so,  but  it  has  been  this  con- 
viction that  has  contributed  powerfully  to 
man's  advancement,  being  one  of  the  most 
potent  factors  of  his  development,  underly- 
ing the  conception  of  the  worth  of  the  in- 
dividual, the  sacredness  of  life  and  the 
moral  significance  of  existence  with  eternity 
as  its  culmination.  Is  it  likely  then  that 
such  an  irresistible  instinctive  consciousness 

92 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy- 
existing  independently  and  indigenously  in 
the  whole  human  family  from  its  genesis, 
with  continual  accumulative  deepening  and 
strengthening  of  power,  expressing,  as  it 
does,  all  humanity's  aspirations,  is  not 
founded  on  a  reality  ?  Is  the  entire  human 
race  likely  to  be  deceived  from  its  beginning 
to  the  present,  in  one  of  its  most  original 
instincts,  when  it  has  made  such  astounding 
progress  in  all  other  lines?  This  univer- 
sality from  the  very  genesis  of  history, 
strengthened  and  elevated  by  progress,  rep- 
resenting a  universal  instinct,  and  being 
bound  up  with  all  race  progress,  carries 
immense  weight  to  the  thoughtful  mind  as 
being  the  expression  of  an  inward  posses- 
sion of  immortality. 

Next,  consider  the  much  debated  argu- 
ment from  analogy.  It  is  here  also  per- 
fectly true  that  analogy  can  never  be  a 
logical  conclusion  until  the  spiritual  realm 
is  shown  to  correspond  with  the  laws  of  the 
physical.  To  argue  from  one  to  the  other, 
one  must  know  that  they  harmonize.  But 
if  there  is  one  Creator  of  the  universe  is  it 
not  more  probable  and  natural  to  suppose 
that  He  would  make  two  halves  into  one 
harmonious  whole,  rather  than  leave  them 

93 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

conflicting  and  contradictory?  Is  it  not 
more  reasonable  to  think  that  He  would 
create  a  continuity  between  spiritual  and 
natural  worlds  with  great  circles  running 
through  both  hemispheres,  rather  than  two 
sets  of  confusing  conflicting  laws?  It  is 
true,  likewise,  that  one  cannot  argue  from  a 
physical  phenomenon  to  a  physical-spiritual 
change,  as  for  instance,  from  the  caterpillar 
into  the  butterfly  to  the  disembodied  spirit 
after  death,  the  one  being  a  physical  change 
throughout,  the  other  being  a  change  from 
the  physical  to  the  spiritual.  Yet  as  illus- 
trations, hints,  suggestions,  prophecies,  the 
striking  analogies  of  nature's  life  after  ap- 
parent death  will  always  appeal  to  men's 
minds  and  hearts,  and  be  one  of  those  addi- 
tional facts  that  is  well  worth  gathering  to 
add  its  weight  to  the  mass  of  other  predic- 
tions. 

In  one  sense  the  whole  course  of  na- 
ture seems  to  teach  survival  under  a  new 
form  in  a  new  sphere.  Everywhere  we  see 
transformations  of  the  same  life  existing 
under  widely  contrasted  conditions.  When 
the  ancient  Egyptian  saw  the  beetle  break- 
ing from  its  filthy  sepulchre,  he  at  once  saw 
in  that  process  a  hint  of  future  existence 

94 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

and  therefore  placed  the  scarabaBUs  in  tem- 
ple and  on  charm  as  emblem  of  man's 
breaking  from  the  tomb.  The  same 
thoughts  arise  in  us  when  we  watch  the 
apparently  dead  snake  slowly  shedding  its 
old  slough  and  gliding  forth  with  renewed 
life,  or  when  we  see  the  bird  bursting  from 
its  shell  and  contrast  the  eagle  in  egg  with 
the  eagle  soaring  towards  the  sun,  or  the 
dying  seed  springing  up  in  a  new  harvest, 
or  spring  awakening  from  winter's  death, 
or  the  tadpole  breathing  through  gills  in 
water  yet  gradually  preparing  to  live  in 
another  sphere  and  breathe  through  lungs 
on  land,  or  when  we  watch  the  silk  worm 
slowly  weaving  its  death-shroud  of  a  cocoon 
only  to  emerge  therefrom  as  a  radiantly 
colored  winged  insect  with  new  faculties  to 
sail  free  and  joyous  in  a  boundless  sphere. 
How  can  one  see  all  these  continual  trans- 
formations, and  recognize  everywhere  the 
great  law  of  life  from  apparent  death,  with- 
out feeling  that  the  Author  of  nature  has 
thus  predicted  that  we  shall  survive  our 
change  of  death  in  accordance  with  the 
same  great  law  ?  Will  He  carry  out  this 
transformation  for  seed,  fish,  reptile,  insect, 
bird,  and  yet  not  permit  the  paragon  of  all 

95 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

nature,  man,  to  renew  his  life  after  this 
pitiful  little  existence  ?  Even  a  toad  en- 
crusted in  the  forming  rock  is  said  to  live 
for  centuries  and  a  grain  of  wheat  in  a 
mummy-case  for  millenniums ;  will  God's 
child  then  be  cut  off  with  four  score  years 
and  ten  ? 

This  same  law  of  the  transformation  of  life 
from  apparent  death  that  we  have  seen  in 
the  lower  order  of  life,  applies  to  man  as  far 
as  we  can  follow  him.  The  contrast  between 
the  unborn  babe  and  the  mature  educated 
man,  between  Caesar,  Newton,  Goethe,  in 
the  womb  and  afterwards  as  world-conquer- 
ors,— shows  the  continuance  of  life  under 
widely  differing  circumstances.  Moreover, 
the  whole  realm  of  embryology  reveals  the 
vast  law  that  death  means  simply  outgrow- 
ing limitations  and  passing  into  a  higher 
sphere.  Death  in  embryology  is  simply  the 
culmination  of  one  stage  of  existence  and 
the  birth  into  a  larger,  more  complex  state 
of  development.  Thus  when  the  grafian 
follicle  outgrows  its  limitations  it  dies,  its 
nucleous  becoming  the  ovum ;  the  ovum  vi- 
talized, develops  to  maturity  and  dies,  its 
nucleus  becoming  the  placenta  with  germ 
centre ;  the  germ  centre  dies,  its  nucleus  be- 

96 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy- 
coming  developed  into  the  embryo ;  the  pla- 
centa dies,  its  nucleus,  the  embryo  being 
born  into  this  world.  Logically  then,  con- 
tinuing the  process,  we  infer,  the  body  here 
outgrowing  its  limitations  dies,  its  nucleus, 
the  spiritual  nature,  being  born  into  a  higher 
sphere.  Either  this  process  continues,  or  we 
have  a  sudden  illogical  break  in  the  contin- 
uity of  the  Creator's  process. 

"In  death's  unrobing  room  we  strip  from 
round  us 
The  garments  of  mortality  and  earth ; 
And,  breaking  from  the  embryo  state  that 
bound  us, 
Our  day  of  dying  is  our  day  of  birth." 

Likewise  if  man  is  continually  losing  a 
part  of  his  body,  renewing  his  entire  frame 
every  seven  years,  yet  retaining  his  identity, 
and  all  this  according  to  nature's  established 
law,  when  he  comes  to  lose  the  whole  of  his 
body  by  another  great  law  of  nature  death, 
why  may  he  not  continue  to  retain  his  iden- 
tity by  the  same  analogous  law  ?  Even  the 
Arabs  express  their  conviction  of  this  anal- 
ogy beautifully  in  their  philosophy.  As  the 
material  of  man's  body,  say  they,  is  gathered 

97 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

from  the  vast  store  of  matter  in  nature,  and 
is  afterwards  restored  to  its  source,  the  body 
being  returned  to  nature,  so  man's  spirit 
coming  from  the  universal  Divinity,  is  at 
last  returned  to  that  Divinity.  What  is  this 
but  uninspired  philosophy  looking  out  on 
nature  and  saying, — "  Then  shall  the  dust 
return  to  the  earth,  as  it  was :  and  the  spirit 
shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it." 

This  persistence  of  life,  therefore,  under 
new  forms  and  conditions  over  all  the  realm 
of  nature,  makes  us  feel  it  is  but  natural  to 
expect  this  same  persistence  of  life  after  the 
change  of  death. 

But  nature  has  more  than  beautiful  illus- 
tration. She  suggests  principles  and  laws 
whereby  eternal  existence  might  be  secured 
could  the  conditions  be  fulfilled.  The  more 
complex  the  organism,  says  Drummond,  and 
the  more  perfect  its  adjustment  with  its  en- 
vironment, the  longer  its  life.  So  evident  is 
this  in  nature  that  Herbert  Spencer  lays 
down  the  law  that  could  we  find  a  perfect 
correspondence  that  would  endure  with  an 
environment  that  would  continue,  we  would 
have  eternal  life :  "  Perfect  correspondence 
would  be  perfect  life.  Were  there  no 
changes  in  the  environment  but  such  as  the 

98 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

organism  had  adapted  changes  to  meet,  and 
were  it  never  to  fail  in  the  efficiency  with 
which  it  met  them,  there  would  be  eternal 
existence  and  eternal  knowledge."  Now 
carrying  on  and  up  this  analogy,  man  has 
simply  to  create  this  correspondence  with 
the  Eternal,  and  we  find  him  fulfilling  these 
conditions  that  nature  suggests.  For  when 
he  links  himself  in  communion  with  the 
spiritual  force  of  the  universe,  he  has  se- 
cured the  perfect  correspondence  with  an 
eternal  quality  and  environment,  thus  realiz- 
ing nature's  conditions  of  eternal  existence. 
This  was  Schleiermacher's  thought  when  he 
said, — "  In  the  midst  of  the  finite  to  be  one 
with  the  infinite,  and  in  each  passing  moment 
to  have  eternal  existence,  that  is  the  immor- 
tality of  religion."  And  Schenkel  also 
echoed  this  truth  when  he  wrote, — "  Only 
he  who  is  in  God  has  part  in  eternity  in 
time."  Nor  will  this  necessarily  restrict  im- 
mortality only  to  the  few  spirtual  ones  of 
the  race,  if  we  accept  evolution's  theory  that 
the  whole  animal  spirit  of  man  at  the  proper 
stage  of  development  was  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  eternal  life  spirit  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  thus  the  race  became  immortal. 
Again,  nature  also  teaches  us  the  law  that 

99 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

nothing  is  ever  really  destroyed.  Apparent 
annihilation  simply  means  change  of  form. 
All  changes  are  exchanges.  No  one  can  des- 
troy an  atom.  It  is  immortal.  Hammer, 
burn,  rarify  as  you  will,  you  simply  change 
solids  to  liquids,  liquids  to  gases,  but  the  ul- 
timate atoms  are  never  impaired  in  the 
slightest.  Through  all  the  myriads  of 
changes  the  sum  total  of  atoms  remains  the 
same  to-day  as  at  the  beginning.  Now  is  it 
rational  to  think  that  mere  atoms  would  be 
made  to  persist,  and  precious  thought,  gen- 
ius, spirit  be  allowed  to  perish?  If  the 
Creator  preserves  the  less  valuable,  will  He 
not  the  more  valuable  ?  Is  not  the  life  more 
than  raiment  ?  Can  we  conceive  of  a  father 
saving  his  child's  clothing,  and  deliberately 
allowing  his  child  to  perish  in  the  flames  ? 
Does  God  preserve  the  elementary  constit- 
uents through  their  countless  changes  and 
yet  snuff  out  the  precious  spirit  of  His  own 
offspring  ?  Would  He  give  millions  of  years 
to  the  duration  of  solar  svstems  and  annihi- 
late  His  own  child  after  this  little  gasp  ? 

Nature  further  corroborates  this  law,  by 
showing  there  is  no  such  thing  as  waste  in 
her  domain.  Apparent  waste  fertilizes 
future  growth.     Every  scrap  and  fragment 

ioo 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy- 
is  jealously  gathered  up  and  used  again  in 
some  new  form.  Shall  then  the  choicest, 
most  precious  product  of  the  universe — 
intelligence,  spirit,  character — be  absolutely 
recklessly  thrown  away  ?  "  That  will  last 
forever,"  says  Lotze,  "  which  on  account  of 
its  excellence  and  spirit  must  be  an  abiding 
part  of  the  universe."  It  was  this  thought 
that  gave  Tennyson  absolute  heart  cer- 
tainty in  the  crushing  bereavement  of  the 
talented  Hallam. 

"  And  he,  shall  he, 
Man,  her  last  work,  who  seemed  so  fair, 
Such  splendid  purpose  in  his  eyes, 
Who  roll'd  the  psalm  to  wintry  skies, 
Who  built  him  fanes  of  fruitless  prayer, 

"  Who  trusted  God  was  love  indeed 
And  love  creative,  final  law — 
Tho'  Nature,  red  in  tooth  and  claw 
With  ravine,  shriek'd  against  his  creed  — 

"  Who  lov'd,  who  suffer'd  countless  ills, 
Who  battled  for  the  True,  the  Just, 
Be  blown  about  the  desert  dust, 
Or  seal'd  within  the  iron  hills  ?  " 

Likewise  Goethe  standing  by  the  corpse 

IOI 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

of  the  great  Wieland  exclaimed,  "The 
destruction  of  such  high  powers  is  some- 
thing which  can  never,  and  under  no 
circumstances,  even  come  into  question." 
And  Matthew  Arnold  in  spite  of  all  his 
intellectual  doubts  and  questionings,  when 
his  noble  father  lay  dead,  was  compelled  to 
soliloquize, — 

"  Oh  strong  soul,  by  what  shore 
Tarriest  thou  now  ?    For  that  force 
Surely,  hast  not  been  left  vain ! 
Somewhere,  surely,  afar 
In  the  sounding  labor-house  vast 
Of  being,  is  practiced  that  strength 
Zealous,  beneficent,  firm ! " 

"  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  anything  in 
nature,"  says  Martineau,  "  (unless  it  be  the 
reported  blotting  out  of  suns  in  the  stellar 
heavens)  which  can  be  compared  in  waste- 
fulness with  the  extinction  of  great  minds ; 
their  gathered  resources,  their  matured 
skill,  their  luminous  insight,  their  unfailing 
tact,  are  not  like  instincts  that  can  be 
handed  down  :  they  are  absolutely  personal 
and  inalienable ;  grand  conditions  of  future 
power,  unavailable  for  the  race,  and  perfect 

102 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

for  an  ulterior  growth  of  the  individual. 
If  that  growth  is  not  to  be,  the  most 
brilliant  genius  bursts  and  vanishes  as  a 
firework  in  the  night." 

"  What  is  excellent,"  sings  Emerson, 
"  As  God  lives  is  permanent ; 

Hearts  are  dust,  hearts'  loves  remain ; 

Hearts'  love  will  meet  thee  again." 

And  the  heart  feels  this  is  as  true  of  char- 
acter as  it  is  of  intellect.  When  one  stands 
by  the  casket  of  some  beautiful  strong 
character,  cut  off  in  the  prime  of  its  useful- 
ness, at  such  a  tender,  deep,  true  moment, 
he  will  find  his  lips  saying, — such  a  rare 
sweet  spirit  of  such  marvellous  self-sacrifice, 
such  divine  tenderness,  such  helpful  sym- 
pathy cannot  end.  It  is  in  such  perfect 
harmony,  in  such  affinity  with  the  heart  of 
the  All-Father  God  Himself.  It  must  be 
needed.  It  must  survive  in  some  higher 
influence  in  the  great  moral  universe. 

But  perhaps  the  strongest  philosophical 
personal  conviction  of  immortality  is  found 
in  introspective  psychology.  If  immortality 
is  a  present  possession,  not  a  future  acquire- 
ment,  then  there  surely  should  be  some 

103 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

hints,  inklings,  foregleams  of  that  im- 
mortality in  ourselves,  no  matter  how- 
obscured  by  the  encasement  of  flesh.  In- 
stead of  always  looking  around  for  proofs, 
why  not  also  look  within  ?  Why  not  see  if 
there  are  not  reflections  of  the  Creator's 
image  in  which  we  were  formed?  And 
foremost  is  the  psychological  conviction  in 
every  sane  man  that  he  is  something  more, 
and  something  apart  from  the  body  in 
which  he  lives.  "  Cogito  ergo  sum."  There 
is  the  instinctive  consciousness  that  the  real 
individuality  is  not  body,  but  spirit,  which 
being  an  immaterial  principle  is  not  nec- 
essarily any  more  affected  by  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  body  than  the  tenant  is  affected 
by  the  removing  of  his  house.  As  Benjamin 
Franklin  so  quaintly  expressed  it  in  his 
epitaph, — "  The  body  of  Benjamin  Franklin, 
printer  (like  the  cover  of  an  old  book,  its 
contents  torn  out,  and  stript  of  its  lettering 
and  gilding),  lies  here  food  for  worms ;  yet 
the  work  itself  shall  not  be  lost,  for  it  will 
(as  he  believed)  appear  once  more  in  a  new 
and  more  beautiful  edition,  corrected  and 
amended  by  the  author."  All  philosophers 
have  felt  the  force  of  this  and  other  soul 
convictions  that  Descartes  called  "innate 

104 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

ideas."  Whence  come  they  ?  Whence 
come  these  great  soul  impressions  that  one's 
spirit  is  but  the  tenant  of  the  body,  being 
God's  eternal  offspring,  with  even  suspicions 
of  past  remembrances  and  future  unfold- 
ings  ?  Plato  thought  that  they  came  from 
some  experience  before  birth ;  Aristotle, 
from  some  distinct  prior  formative  intellect ; 
Kant,  from  a  mind  anterior  to  experience 
as  the  creator  of  experience;  and  Words- 
worth voices  this  mystic  feeling  in  his  lofty 
familiar  verse, — 

u  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting : 
The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's 

Star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  it's  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar : 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

To  the  soul  then  that  feels  these  "  innate 
ideas  "  of  the  conscious  self  being  more  than 
the  organism  that  holds  it,  immortality  is 
something  that  is  felt  in  the  most  profound 
depths  of  the  human  spirit. 

105 


I 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

A  curious  proof  of  this  innate  persistence 
of  the  consciousness  of  immortality  is  that 
you  cannot  conceive  yourself  as  having 
ceased  to  exist  after  death.  You  can  theo- 
retically think  of  your  own  annihilation, 
but  you  cannot  realize  it  as  a  fact,  for  the 
slightest  thought  of  destruction  is  always 
overcome  by  an  instinctive  sense  of  persist- 
ent being.  Whenever,  for  instance,  you  try 
to  imagine  yourself  as  dead,  you  in  reality 
think  of  yourself  as  being  present  at  your 
own  funeral,  beholding  all  that  is  said  and 
done,  accompanying  the  procession  to  the 
cemetery,  seeing  the  casket  lowered,  the 
grave  refilled,  and  witnessing  the  grief  of 
the  mourners.  Not  once  can  you  truly  im- 
agine yourself  as  absolutely  annihilated, 
but  you  find  yourself  always  present  as  a 
living  mind  looking  at  your  dead  body. 
The  great  underlying  reason  why  we  dread 
death  is  because  we  instinctively  think  of 
ourselves  not  as  having  ended,  but  as  being 
still  alive  somewhere  in  space. 

"  The  dread  of  something  after  death, 
The  undiscovered  country  from  whose 

bourne 
No  traveller  returns,  puzzles  the  will, 

106 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we 

have 
Than  to  fly  to  others  that  we  know 

not  of." 

And  this  same  strange  psychological  law 
is  as  true  in  thinking  of  others.  You  think 
of  them  as  ended  on  earth,  but  cannot  grasp 
the  thought  of  their  having  altogether 
ceased  to  exist  as  thinking  minds.  No 
matter  how  vague,  indefinite  and  ghostly 
your  thoughts  of  them  are,  you  still  con- 
ceive of  them  as  continuing  to  exist.  Isow 
it  is  true  that  thinking  a  fact  does  not  imply 
the  reality  of  that  fact;  yet,  the  highest 
philosophy  maintains  that  necessary  think- 
ing of  a  fact  is  the  image  of  a  reality :  for 
God's  order  must  correspond  to  what  is  ab- 
solutely inevitable  in  man's  reason,  other- 
wise we  could  not  live  in  this  world,  as  we 
do,  by  means  of  reason  and  its  inferences. 
That  which  is  absolutely  necessary  to  pure 
thought  must  have  a  reality.  It  is  on  this 
truth  that  God  and  the  methods  of  crea- 
tion are  postulated.  If  then  death  as  the 
blank  cessation  of  all  mind  is  unthinkable, 
such  annihilation  of  mind  must  be  unreal ; 
and  if  persistence  of  mind  is  an  absolutely 

107 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

necessary  conception  of  sound  reason,  such 
persistence  must  correspond  with  the  reality. 
Thus  Goethe  reasoned  when  he  declared, 
"  It  is  to  a  thinking  mind  quite  impossible 
to  think  himself  non-existent,  ceasing  to 
think  and  live ;  so  far  does  every  one  carry 
in  himself  the  proof  of  immortality,  and 
quite  spontaneously.  But  as  soon  as  the 
man  will  be  objective  and  go  out  of  himself, 
so  soon  as  he  will  dogmatically  grasp  a  per- 
sonal duration  to  bolster  up,  in  cockney 
fashion,  that  inward  assurance,  he  is  lost  in 
contradiction." 

Add  to  this  the  further  evidence  that  good 
men  arrive  at  a  certain  point  in  their  spirit- 
ual experience  when  they  have  absolute  cer- 
tainty that  their  union  with  God  is  eternal. 
This  certainty  is  just  as  real  and  positive  as 
the  fact  of  their  own  existence.  The  truly 
spiritual  character  comes  to  know  that  "  he 
is  in  God  and  God  in  him."  He  holds  to 
this  conviction  it  may  be  through  a  lifetime 
of  adversity  and  enters  death  without  a 
shadow  of  doubt  or  trembling.  Every  day 
we  see  this  soul  certainty  of  God  and  im- 
mortality confirmed  on  deathbeds;  and 
looking  back  through  the  ages  we  see  that 
vast  army  of  martyrs,  reformers,  mission- 

108 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

aries  who  have  witnessed  the  unshakable 
absoluteness  of  this  soul  conviction  by  long 
lives  of  apparently  hopeless  toil  and  sacri- 
fice, by  enduring  tortures  and  by  volun- 
tarily facing  the  King  of  terrors  in  his  most 
hideous  forms,  fearlessly,  triumphantly,  be- 
cause of  the  certainty  that  they  lived  in 
God  and  could  never  die.  It  is  true  that 
no  one  can  take  another's  experience  for 
his  own  proof;  yet  such  testimony,  con- 
firmed by  such  characters,  should  certainly 
add  its  weight  together  with  other  indica- 
tions, in  making  us  feel  there  must  be  some 
reality  underlying  such  a  vivid  conscious- 
ness. 

Once  more,  when  we  study  the  nature 
and  constitution  of  the  mind  itself,  we  find 
ourselves  carried  forward  logically  into 
eternity  for  its  sequences.  The  very  grand- 
eur of  man's  capability  for  unlimited 
thought,  contrasts  violently  with  any  idea 
of  his  extinction  in  a  few  short  vears. 
Physically,  he  is  but  an  infinitesimal  atom 
in  the  immensity  of  the  universe.  Yet,  as 
Parker  once  said,  "  The  biggest  star  is  at 
the  little  end  of  the  telescope."  Mentally, 
he  is  greater  than  all  the  matter  of  the  uni- 
verse combined.     Within  him  lies  that  mys- 

109 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

terious  power  whereby  he  can  soar  through 
time  and  space  at  will,  uncovering  the 
universe  and  its  laws,  weighing  the  stars, 
analyzing  the  suns,  unravelling  nature's 
mysteries,  conquering  her  with  mighty 
civilizations,  dwelling  in  the  remote  twi- 
light of  the  beginning  or  the  end  of  time, 
and  finding  in  all  the  universe  nothing  that 
surpasses  his  own  mind,  except  its  greater 
affinity — the  Infinite  Mind.  This  unlimited 
capacity  of  the  intellect  flatly  contradicts 
speedy  extinction  of  being.  "  All  our  intel- 
lectual actions,"  says  Emerson,  "  bestow  a 
feeling  of  absolute  existence."  "  To  me," 
says  Goethe,  "  the  eternal  existence  of  my 
soul  is  proved  from  my  idea  of  activity." 

Moreover,  life  itself  is  imperfect  and  frag- 
mentary, intellectually,  emotionally  and 
spiritually.  No  matter  what  attainments 
are  accomplished,  no  one  reaches  the  limit 
of  his  unfolded  possibilities.  No  one  is 
fully  satisfied  in  intellect,  heart,  or  ideals. 
The  intellect  catches  glimpses  of  vistas  of 
infinite  truth,  of  eternal  sequences  of  ideas, 
that  it  can  only  glance  upon,  although  it  is 
conscious  of  the  ability  to  pursue  did  cir- 
cumstances permit.  The  heart  cries  out  in 
its  hunger  for  some  power  to  fully  reveal  its 

no 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy- 
own  depths  and  satisfy  its  infinite  yearnings 
of  spirit.  The  moral  sense  can  never  be 
fully  satisfied  short  of  the  restored  order  of 
the  whole  moral  universe.  If  life,  then,  be 
not  a  Satanic  mockery,  we  must  look  be- 
yond for  the  completion  of  our  nature. 
Think  of  our  intellectual  limitations.  Our 
faculties  constitute  only  a  segment  pro- 
phetic of  the  completed  circle  hereafter. 
There  is  a  limit  and  completion  to  the 
growth  of  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom. 
When  the  plant  brings  forth  many  times  its 
leaf,  flower  and  fruit,  it  fulfills  its  mission, 
reaches  the  object  of  its  creation,  and  at- 
tains the  limit  of  its  being.  The  animal 
body  likewise  fulfills  its  maturity  and  de- 
cays. But  there  is  no  such  limit  or  comple- 
tion to  the  mind.  The  capacity  for  ideals 
of  both  culture  and  character  are  boundless. 
Every  one  possesses  this  singular  power  of 
continually  conceiving  higher  visions  than 
he  can  possibly  realize.  Strive  as  he  will, 
each  attainment  only  enables  him  to  see 
greater  possibilities.  Every  result  achieved 
simply  enlarges  his  ability  for  greater  at- 
tainment, this  growing  capacity  therefore 
prophesying  eternal  utility.  The  more  we 
study   the    greater  the  thirst  for  further 

in 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

knowledge,  and  the  greater  the  capacity  for 
following  it.  So  that  death  surprises  us  at 
the  moment  when  we  feel  we  have  only 
made  a  fair  beginning.  Even  if  spared  to 
old  age,  we  feel  as  did  Tennyson,  that  we 
need  another  entire  life  for  music,  another 
for  art,  another  for  science,  and  another  for 
history ;  or  with  Coleridge  we  outline  studies 
we  wish  to  pursue,  that  upon  examination 
are  seen  to  require  a  hundred  years  at  col- 
lege. And  much  even  of  the  little  we  do 
learn  here  would  be  useless  if  death  ends 
all.  Not  only  do  we  make  a  mere  begin- 
ning, but  we  make  a  mere  beginning  of 
only  a  few  faculties,  such  as  reason,  memory, 
judgment,  while  psychologists  tell  us  over 
forty  remain  in  embryonic  potentiality,  that 
are  never  unfolded  in  this  life.  Is  not  this 
great  bunch  of  undeveloped  powers  pro- 
phetic of  development  hereafter  ?  Does  not 
the  bud  argue  a  future  flower  ?  Could  there 
be  anything  more  desolate  than  to  raise 
vast  acres  of  buds  that  seem  to  prophesy 
fields  of  gorgeous  roses,  only  to  blight  them 
all  suddenly  while  in  the  bud,  leaving  the 
promising  fields  a  vast  cemetery,  smitten  by 
the  canker  worm  of  death  ?  Surely  all  the 
other  parts  of  creation  witness  that  God  is 

112 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

too  wise  a  florist  to  harvest  only  dead  blos- 
soms. Thus  our  undeveloped  potentialities 
pledge  their  development  thereafter. 

There  are  also  psychologically,  many  mys- 
terious delicate  shades  and  tremblings  of  the 
human  spirit  that  indicate  eternity  as  truly 
as  the  quivering  of  the  sensitive  needle  re- 
veals the  presence  of  the  mysterious  current 
that  is  pointing  it  towards  the  unknown 
region. 

"  His  heart  forebodes  a  mystery. 
He  names  the  name,  eternity." 

Whence  comes  this  universal  feeling  of 
perpetual  discontent,  dissatisfaction,  man 
never  being,  but  always  to  be  blessed.  Like 
the  irridescent  bubble  so  much  seems  price- 
less in  anticipation,  worthless  in  grasp. 
Coveted  possessions  acquired,  simply  change 
the  character  of  the  discontent.  Alexander 
conquers  the  world  and  weeps.  Sardanap- 
ulus  cries,  "  The  more  I  drink  the  more  I 
thirst."  Whence  comes  this  infinite  hunger 
of  the  spirit  ?  Whence  come  these  ideals, 
that  no  genius  can  half  realize,  that  descend 
and  possess  man,  rather  than  man  originating 
them,  that  man  clings  to  even  through  fail- 

ii3 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

ure  ?  Were  this  life  all,  everything  would 
be  so  adjusted  as  to  satisfy  the  spirit.  We 
would  be  as  contented  as  the  cow  chewing 
her  cud,  or  the  sheep  grazing  on  hillside 
without  a  thought  or  care  for  past  or  future. 
But  this  perpetual  discontent  and  unsatisfied 
longing,  echoed  from  Solomon's  "  Vanity  of 
Yanities ! "  to  the  corroboration  of  latest 
monarch  or  sage, — what  is  it  but  the  strug- 
gling of  the  imperishable  within  the  perish- 
able, the  immortal  spirit  refusing  to  be  sat- 
isfied with  husks,  aspiring  towards  the 
Eternal  ? 


05 


"  Thus  I  know,"  sings  Browning 
"  This  earth  is  not  my  sphere. 
For  I  cannot  so  narrow  me, 
But  that  I  still  exceed  it." 

Then  what  is  the  explanation  of  those 
subtle  mysterious  moods  of  the  spirit  that 
under  deep  experiences  of  joy  or  sorrow, 
lift  us  out  of  this  world  and  waft  us  towards 
eternity  ?  There  is,  for  instance,  a  mystery, 
a  meaning,  a  depth,  a  revelation  in  intricate 
profound  harmony,  in  masterful  or  sad  music 
that  seems  to  wring  the  soul  from  the  body, 
and  make  it  realize  it  is  a  spiritual  quality, 
an  affinity  with  the  subtle  harmonies  of  the 

114 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

spiritual  world.  Great  soul  musicians  lost 
in  the  trance  of  lofty  melody  know  for  a 
certainty  that  they  are  immortal ;  and  we 
share  a  similar  experience  in  a  less  degree, 
when  we  are  caught  up  in  spirit  to  the  third 
heaven  and  hear  sounds  unutterable.  Or 
how  explain  those  terrible  wrestlings  of  the 
heart  with  some  spiritual  Being  all  through 
the  dark  night  of  sorrow  until  the  day 
breaks  and  there  descends  a  strange  peace, 
an  unearthly  balm,  a  certainty  of  spiritual 
help,  like  "  the  Eternal  Arms "  placed  un- 
derneath the  bruised  and  crushed  nature, 
such  an  experience  as  Carlyle  tells  us  came 
to  him  in  the  darkness  of  his  great  sorrow, 
not  untinged  by  remorse,  while  he  was  re- 
peating the  words  of  the  Lord's  prayer? 
Or  how  explain  those  uncontrollable  expe- 
riences of  sudden  homesickness,  loneliness, 
discouragement,  aspiration  that  sweep  over 
the  heart  as  abruptly  as  the  unexpected  tem- 
pest tears  the  music  from  the  trembling 
chords  of  the  aeolian  harp  ?  Whence  come 
those  true  deep  moments  of  the  divination 
of  some  transcendent  world,  of  some  Pres- 
ence above  the  human,  and  of  a  reality  of 
contact  of  the  human  spirit  with  the  Divine  ? 
Mariners  sailing  across  the  Caribbean  seas 

ii5 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

imagine  that  they  hear  deep  down  under- 
neath the  water  the  music  of  the  sweet  ring- 
ing of  bells  that  rises  from  the  sunken  is- 
lands. So  at  times  there  surges  upward  in 
the  heart  the  music  of  mysterious  voices 
from  unfathomable  spirit  depths,  "whose 
very  sweetness  yieldeth  proof  that  they  were 
born  for  immortality."  At  times  these  emo- 
tions are  like  the  great  swelling,  heaving 
tides  that  are  being  drawn  by  the  powerful 
attraction  of  some  celestial  world.  At  other 
times  they  seem  not  to  originate  with  our- 
selves but  to  sweep  out  from  the  infinite, 
breathe  upon  the  human  soul,  and  sweep 
back  into  the  infinite  again.  Call  these  ex- 
periences mere  emotion,  if  you  will,  but  the 
discerning  heart  knows  for  a  certainty  that 
they  witness  to  something  within  that  is 
more  than  this  world.  If  we  trust  a  feeling 
in  regard  to  the  reality  of  the  universe  and 
build  life  upon  it,  why  not  trust  these  deep- 
est surgings  of  the  human  spirit  that  bear 
the  great  flood-tide  towards  the  Infinite  ? 

"  If  e'er  when  faith  had  fallen  asleep, 
I  heard  a  voice  '  believe  no  more,' 
And  heard  an  ever-breaking  shore 
That  tumbled  in  the  Godless  deep : 

116 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

"  A  warmth  within  the  breast  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part, 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answer'd  '  I  have  felt.' " 

The  sum  total  of  all  these  myriad  delicate 
shades  of  spirit  constitutes  what  might  be 
called  soul  instincts  of  immortality.  Now 
nature  never  deceives  the  instincts  of  the 
animal  creation.  When  the  fish  starts  in- 
stinctively to  swim,  the  bird  to  fly,  the 
bee  to  hive,  the  spider  to  weave,  each  finds 
the  fulfillment  of  what  its  nature  predicts. 
When  the  restless  feeling  comes  to  the 
birds  in  the  fall,  with  the  intuition  of  a  far 
distant  sunny,  balmy  clime,  and  they  rise, 
circle  and  take  their  flight,  the  unerring  in- 
stinct guides  them  to  the  realization  of 
a  warm  and  happy  land.  Will  nature  thus 
be  true  to  the  instincts  of  the  whole  animal 
creation  and  yet  lie  to  the  highest,  finest  in- 
stincts of  the  spirit  ?  For,  as  Cicero  says, 
"  There  is,  I  know  not  how,  in  the  minds  of 
men,  a  certain  presage,  as  it  were,  of  a 
future  existence,  and  this  takes  the  deepest 
root  and  is  the  most  discoverable  in  the 
greatest  geniuses  and  most  exalted  souls." 
Shall    we  not  then  say  confidently  with 

117 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Bryant,  as  he  watched  the  water-fowl  fly 
southward, — 

"  He  who,  from  zone  to  zone, 

Guides  through  the  boundless  sky 
thy  certain  flight, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread 
alone 
Will  lead  my  steps  aright." 

But  the  supreme  witness  to  immortality 
by  these  fine  traits  of  the  human  spirit  lies 
in  the  undying  and  ever  increasing  power 
of  true  affection.  "Many  waters  cannot 
quench  love."  He  who  loves  devotedly 
carries  with  him  an  ever  increasing  as- 
surance of  eternal  life,  in  its  continually 
augmenting  capacity  and  its  never  fully 
completed  satisfaction.  The  very  ability  to 
truly  love,  implies  immortality,  for  souls 
alone  are  able  to  love.  Bodies  cannot. 
True  love  is  deep  soul-affinity,  soul  living 
with  soul,  helping,  educating,  developing  in 
mutual  sacrifice  and  ministry  ;  and  through 
all  the  changes  of  life,  within  and  without, 
this  soul  of  love  abides,  containing  always  a 
vast  flood-tide  of  sympathy  and  sacrifice  that 
is  boundless.     Such  a  true  sacred  love,  for 

118 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

instance,  was  that  of  the  poet  and  poetess 
Browning,  the  intensity  of  whose  mutual 
soul  passion  has  been  an  inspiration  to  the 
world.  There  is  something  in  the  very 
quality  of  love  that  convinces  one  of  its  eter- 
nity, revealing,  as  it  does,  an  infinity  of  un- 
satisfied yearning,  of  sublime  tenderness,  of 
God-like  self-sacrifice.  It  seems  created  to 
endure  in  heaven,  for  it  makes  any  earthly 
spot  a  heaven,  and  is  the  quality  we  share 
with  God  Himself.  For  true  love  never 
ages.  As  the  body  grows  old,  love  grows 
young,  becoming  only  infinitely  more  ten- 
der and  self-sacrificing,  so  that  we  come 
to  life's  borders  realizing  the  insufficiency 
of  time  to  satisfy  this  eternal  quality,  and 
with  an  increased  intensity  of  yearning 
that  argues  its  continuance  hereafter. 

Nor  is  this  witness  of  love  to  immortality 
confined  to  the  limits  of  one's  own  family. 
As  man  grows  up  out  of  the  animal  towards 
the  spiritual,  his  love  widens  from  that  of 
family  to  that  of  community,  state  and 
race ;  selfish  love  becoming  transformed 
into  self-sacrificing  devotion  to  the  weak, 
needy,  sinful,  ungrateful  and  even  repulsive 
of  the  whole  human  family, — "  bearing  all 
things,    believing    all    things,    hoping    all 

119 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

things,  enduring  all  things."  It  thus  be- 
comes a  reflection  of  the  Divine,  and  there- 
fore prophetic  of  eternal  continuance.  Such 
a  refined  spiritual  purified  love  craves  re- 
sponse in  kind,  feels  the  need  of  even  a 
higher  love  in  return;  and  in  life's  deep 
moments,  love  realizes  no  response  of 
humanity  can  fully  satisfy  its  depths.  Ac- 
cepting all  the  preciousness  of  human  affec- 
tion, it  yet  reaches  out  towards  some  perfect 
fulfillment ;  and  thus  cries  at  last  with  Saint 
Augustine, — "O  God,  Thou  hast  made  us 
for  Thyself,  and  the  heart  is  disquieted 
until  it  rests  in  Thee!"  But  even  the 
response  of  this  perfect  Divine  love  is  never 
completely  fulfilled  in  time ;  for  man  craves, 
at  his  best,  to  give  and  receive  the  love  that 
is  the  product  of  a  perfect  life ;  and  there- 
fore, even  from  the  loftiest  heights  of  Di- 
vine communion,  he  still  cries, — "  I  shall  be 
satisfied  when  I  awake  in  Thy  likeness!" 
This  infinite  capacity  then,  for  giving  and 
receiving  perfect  love,  human  and  divine, 
surpasses  all  boundaries  of  time,  and  makes 
its  possessor  certain  that  love  will  receive 
its  perfect  consummation  in  eternity.  To 
think  that  God  would  ruthlesslv  blow  out 

4/ 

this  highest  quality  of  His  highest  creation, 

1 20 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

that  partakes  of  His  own  essence,  would  be 
to  think  of  Him  as  Satanically  mocking  His 
children,  and  rioting  in  a  chaotic  creation. 
If  the  infinite  Creator  is  to  be  true  to  the 
prophecies  to  His  creature,  He  must  grant 
him  not  merely  continued  existence,  but  the 
fulfillment  of  this  noblest  endowment  of  his 
nature. 

But  before  leaving  this  realm  of  phi- 
losophy, there  are  two  distressing  views  that 
must  be  considered,  which  accept  all  the  in- 
dications of  immortality  yet  turn  them  into 
narrow  channels  that  in  reality  destroy 
their  'significance.  The  first  view,  espe- 
cially prevalent  at  the  present  day,  is  that  of 
Conditional  Immortality,  wThich  maintains 
that  all  men  are  not  immortal  by  nature, 
but  some  become  so,  by  virtue  of  earnest 
endeavor  together  with  God's  help.  It  is 
the  theory  of  the  continuance  of  the  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  in  the  future 
life, — those  that  struggle  for  fitness  with 
God's  help  becoming  immortal,  the  wicked 
eventually  passing  out  of  existence.  This 
theory  is  attractive  at  first  sight,  as  it 
seems  to  make  worth  the  basis  of  future 
existence,  and  seems  scientific,  philosophical 
and  moral.     The   universe   preserves  only 

121 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

what  is  useful;  therefore,  the  fit  survive, 
while  the  wicked,  being  inutile,  perish. 
Thus  also,  all  difficulties  as  to  future  pun- 
ishment and  God's  justice  seem  adjusted. 
But  when  this  view  is  thoroughly  examined, 
it  is  found  to  be  absolutely  untenable.  It 
seems  kind,  but  when  viewed  compre- 
hensively, is  simply  appallingly  horrible. 

To  begin  with  it  is  not  scientific.  The 
scientific  basis  of  immortality  consists  in 
postulating  consciousness  as  only  the  con- 
comitant of  the  brain,  the  brain  being  its 
instrument,  and  consciousness  giving  indica- 
tions of  being  capable  of  existing  independ- 
ently hereafter  when  separated  from  brain- 
matter.  If  so,  were  some  individuals  im- 
mortal and  others  mortal,  we  would  expect 
to  find  some  slight  difference  at  least,  be- 
tween this  relation  of  consciousness  and 
brain  in  the  two  classes.  We  would  natu- 
rally expect  scientifically  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  good  would  show  signs  of  being 
able  to  be  separated  more  readily  from 
brain  matter,  while  that  of  the  bad  would 
reveal  symptoms  of  being  identified  with  it 
and  inseparable.  But  science  finds  abso- 
lutely no  difference  between  the  conscious- 
ness and   brain  matter  of  good  and  bad. 

122 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

The  problem  and  the  mystery  of  survival  is 
the  same  for  both.  It  can  discover  no 
traces  of  two  distinct  species  of  human 
beings,  one  with  souls  and  one  without,  nor 
any  greater  facility  for  separating  mind 
from  body  in  either  class.  So  far  as  science 
looks  at  the  human  structure  it  would  seem 
to  be  a  case  of  all  having  souls  or  none. 

Nor  is  this  theory  true  philosophically.  It 
sounds  reasonable  to  declare  that  the  uni- 
verse, as  a  rule,  preserves  only  what  is  use- 
ful, what  has  value,  what  is  essential  to  its 
existence,  and  that  therefore  bad  souls  pass 
out  of  existence ;  but  it  is  false  inference  to 
think  the  bad  may  have  no  future  value. 
There  is  a  value  of  potentiality  as  well  as  of 
attainment.  The  capacity  for  future  good- 
ness even  in  bad  souls  may  make  them  use- 
ful. There  is  possible  virtue  even  in  the 
lowest  prodigal.  He  is  still  a  son.  The 
possibility  of  reformation,  improvement, 
progress  make  even  perverted  souls  of 
infinite  value.  Who  dares  dogmatically  de- 
clare that  God  in  His  vast  plans  may  not 
ultimately,  after  justice  is  fully  satisfied, 
seek  the  penitence,  transformation  and  per- 
fection of  wayward  souls  thus  giving  them 
a  priceless  value  for  all  eternity  ?    Then, 

123 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

consider  what  a  low  estimate  of  man  is  rep- 
resented by  this  view.  Man  after  all,  is 
only  an  animal  that  naturally  perishes,  both 
body  and  spirit  being  as  mortal  as  the 
brutes,  yet  at  the  same  time,  this  natural 
mortal  is  endowed  with  the  terrific  contra- 
diction of  a  free  will  and  moral  responsi- 
bility !  What  a  far  more  severe  draft  such 
a  theory  makes  upon  the  supernatural, 
to  make  us  think  of  God  thus  continually  in 
the  process  of  immortalizing  perishable 
creatures.  It  savors  also  of  pride  and  self- 
ishness. It  seems  an  attempt  to  create  an 
exclusive  aristocracy  of  the  survival  of  the 
deserving  few,  while  the  great  mass  of  the 
human  family  is  left  to  perish  forever. 
How  could  any  broad  affectionate  heart 
that  loves  the  race  be  happy  in  the  sur- 
vival of  only  a  remnant?  Nor  is  it  a 
stimulus  to  effort,  as  claimed;  for  the 
uncertainty  of  knowing  when  one  has 
gained  sufficient  strenuous  effort  to  be  able 
to  survive  would  fill  one  with  doubt  to  the 
last,  while  the  great  mass  would  give  up  in 
despair.  For  the  better  the  character  the 
more  unworthy  does  one  feel  himself  to  be, 
the  more  keenly  does  he  realize  his  short- 
comings; so  that  the  truer  the  saint,  the 

124 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

less  able  would  he  be  to  claim  this  virtue 
worthy  of  outlasting  that  of  others.  Only 
the  Pharisee  could  feel  certain  of  having 
won  sufficient  character,  and  be  able  to 
thank  God  he  is  not  as  other  men  are. 

But,  further,  when  we  rise  to  the  moral 
and  religious  consideration  of  this  theory 
we  find  it  is  absolutely  repellent.  It  is  not 
Biblical;  for  it  is  only  by  going  through 
the  Scriptures  and  making  eternal  life  mean 
continued  existence  and  eternal  death  anni- 
hilation or  ultimate  non-existence,  that  any 
apparent  support  can  be  found.  Whereas  a 
deeper  study  of  the  spirit  of  the  Bible 
shows  that  eternal  life  means  existence  plus 
a  higher  quality  of  grace  added,  and  eternal 
death  means  existence  minus  this  higher 
quality ;  but  in  neither  case  is  existence 
terminated.  Then,  what  a  fearful  contra- 
diction of  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Bible  it  is 
to  represent  God  as  on  the  side  of  the  few 
select  strong  ones  of  His  creatures,  while  He 
allows  the  vast  mass  of  His  weak  or  way- 
ward children  to  pour  down  in  a  horrible 
torrent  to  eternal  extinction !  It  would 
also  seem  difficult  even  for  God  to  decide 
the  fine  line  where  there  was  or  was  not 
just  enough  effort,  or  just  enough  virtue  to 

125 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

entitle  the  life  to  continue,  since  humanity 
is  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad,  there  being 
no  perfect  saints  or  purely  devilish  sinners, 
but  each  being  more  or  less  a  mixture 
of  both,  there  being  good  in  the  worst  and 
bad  in  the  best,  and  all  far  enough  from  di- 
vine perfection  to  have  mutual  sympathy, 
and  probably  mutual  opportunity  for  con- 
tinued existence. 

The  advocates  of  this  view  think  it  vindi- 
cates God's  justice,  but  in  reality  it  creates 
more  difficulties  than  it  relieves.  If  the 
wicked  perish  instantly  at  death,  where  is 
there  any  satisfaction  of  justice  ?  For  a 
devilish  tyrant  or  villain  to  ruin  thousands 
of  innocent  lives,  live  himself  in  prosperity, 
and  then  become  extinct,  would  defeat  all 
ends  of  justice.  It  is  just  what  the  worst 
characters  on  earth  would  be  glad  to  ac- 
cept. It  thus  violates  the  moral  thought 
of  the  race  through  all  the  ages  that  justice 
will  ultimately  be  accomplished.  Nor  is 
this  difficulty  obviated,  by  modifying  the 
theory,  so  as  to  say  that  the  wicked  are 
raised  for  a  while  after  death  long  enough 
to  be  punished,  afterwards  becoming  ex- 
tinct. For  what  makes  them  live  at  all 
after  death?    If  they  were  mortal  by  na- 

126 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

ture  on  earth,  and  did  not  struggle  for  the 
right,  they  would  not  survive.  But,  answer 
the  advocates  of  this  theory,  God  raises 
them,  makes  them  immortal  for  a  while,  in 
order  to  punish  them.  But  is  not  this  a 
horrible  representation  of  God,  raising  the 
dead  only  to  punish  them?  Does  it  not 
seem  somewhat  like  the  hangman  reviving 
the  strangled  man  in  order  only  to  hang 
him  again;  or  the  inquisitor  resuscitating 
the  victim  who  has  swooned  only  to  place 
him  again  on  the  rack  ?  Does  this  satisfy 
God's  justice  ?  Then,  granting  that  the  bad 
once  live  after  death,  what  is  it  that  makes 
them  become  extinct?  Sin,  answers  this 
theory,  because  sin  wears  itself  out.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  sin  in  itself  never  wears 
itself  out.  It  wears  mortal  bodies  out,  but 
never  its  own  quality.  Indulgence  in  sin 
never  ends  sin,  but  on  the  contrary  pro- 
motes it.  Do  pride,  hatred,  envy  consume 
themselves  by  use,  or  grow  by  the  very  ex- 
ercise of  themselves  ?  If  then,  sin  in  its 
spiritual  quality,  never  consumes  itself, 
what  will  make  the  bad  become  extinct 
after  once  surviving  death  ?  Only  the  de- 
liberate act  of  God.  But  is  not  this  an  un- 
worthy belittling  conception  of  the  infinite 

127 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Father  of  the  human  race,  to  think  that  He 
was  so  utterly  and  finally  defeated  by  sin 
that  the  only  way  He  could  rid  Himself  of 
it  was  by  violently  extinguishing  the  vast 
majority  of  His  own  creatures ! 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  final  decisive 
reason  why  this  seemingly  attractive  theory 
is  impossible, — because  of  the  horrible  fail- 
ure it  would  be  to  God  and  to  humanity. 
"When  one  takes  a  comprehensive  view  of  all 
the  myriads  of  creatures  on  the  globe  during 
all  time  and  thinks  of  the  vast  hordes  that 
have  not  won  in  the  struggle,  that  cannot 
possibly  be  worthy  of  survival  in  their  own 
effort,  the  horror  of  such  a  pitiful  battle- 
field, the  repulsiveness  of  such  a  Niagara 
torrent  of  extinction,  the  ignoble  failure  of 
a  Creator  who  has  thus  practically  lost  His 
cause, — is  its  own  refutation.  If  God  does 
it  deliberately  it  is  even  worse,  for  men 
could  not  worship  such  a  Creator.  He 
would  be  a  Moloch,  not  a  God.  If  even 
men  send  out  missionaries  at  great  sacrifice 
to  save  the  lowest,  most  degraded  specimens 
of  the  human  race  that  are  apparently 
worthless,  will  not  the  all-Father  do  as 
much?  Is  it  not  also  true  that  while 
science  does  teach  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 

128 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

the  very  glory  of  Christianity  is  that  it 
teaches  the  salvation  of  the  unfit  ?  Has 
not  the  weakest  and  most  sinful  child  all 
the  more  claim  on  the  Father's  heart  ? 
Would  the  God  that  revealed  Himself  as 
the  Good  Shepherd,  leaving  the  ninety-and- 
nine  to  go  out  and  seek  the  one  lost  sheep, 
and  as  the  broken-hearted  Father  yearning 
for  the  prodigal's  return,  be  happy  with 
only  the  comparatively  few  strong  surviv- 
ors in  His  presence?  How  much  nobler 
and  more  satisfying  the  truth  that  all  men  are 
immortal,  and  the  hope  that  while  the 
power  of  the  resistance  of  the  human  will 
to  God  is  vast  and  indefinite,  yet  the  power 
of  love  is  infinitely  greater,  and  in  the  long 
run  of  ages,  the  Divine  Father  will  in  His 
wise  way  and  time,  subjugate  all  things 
unto  Himself.  This  is  not  Universalism, 
for  Universalism  declares  that  this  is  true, 
while  we  hope  this  may  be  true,  saying  con- 
fidently,— "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  right  ?  " 

"  Through  all  the  depths  of  sin  and  loss 
Drops  the  plummet  of  thy  cross, 
Never  yet  abyss  was  found 
Deeper  than  the  cross  could  sound," 

129 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

"  O  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill, 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will, 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood ; 

"  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet : 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
"When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

Another  most  distressing  view  of  immor- 
tality, yet  one  with  many  millions  of  ad- 
herents, is  that  of  the  loss  of  all  personality 
by  absorption  in  the  Infinite.  In  the  vast 
cycle  of  the  ages,  we  are  told,  only  the  in- 
finite can  endure.  Man's  soul  being  finite 
must  necessarily,  ultimately,  be  absorbed  in 
the  infinite.  Man  is  immortal;  but  his 
spirit  in  time  must  lose  itself  in  God  who 
gave  it,  in  order  that  God  may  be  all  and 
in  all.  But  this  is  literally  giving  us  a 
stone  and  serpent,  when  we  ask  for  bread 
and  fish.  It  is  a  pretentious  hollow  mock- 
ery that  belies  all  our  aspirations  for  im- 
mortality. For  absorption  into  the  infinite 
amounts  practically  to  total  annihilation. 
What  difference  does  it  make  to  us  whether 
we  are  executed  on  the  seashore  or  absorbed 

130 


The  Predictions  of  Philosophy 

by  drowning  in  the  ocean's  depths  ?  Our 
conscious  identity  perishes  alike  in  either 
case.  Why  may  not  finite  and  infinite  co- 
exist forever  ?  The  fact  that  they  coexist 
here  is  a  presumption  that  they  will  con- 
tinue to  coexist.  Why  create  the  finite  at 
all,  if  the  end  returns  to  the  beginning? 
Where  is  any  reasonableness  of  God's  work  ? 
Is  not  the  thought  of  the  Creator  alone  in 
infinite  space  and  time  with  all  spirits  ab- 
sorbed in  Himself,  a  less  rich  and  blessed 
representation  than  that  of  the  Creator  with 
all  the  results  of  His  wisdom,  love  and  toil 
garnered  around  Him  in  an  eternal  harvest  ? 
The  whole  sweep  of  the  ages,  the  vast  toil, 
the  "  one  law,  one  element,  and  one  far-off 
divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves,"  protest  against  such  a  meaningless 
anti-climax.  Personality  is  the  one  most 
precious  product  of  all  creation.  It  is  the 
culmination  of  the  whole  world's  process; 
so  that,  as  Martineau  truly  says,  if  the  In- 
finite "  swallowed  up  the  personal  life  at  the 
end  of  the  mortal  term,  it  would  be  more 
like  the  sacrifice  of  children  to  Moloch  than 
the  taking  of  Enoch  by  God.  Personality 
is  not  the  largest,  but  it  is  the  highest  fact 
in  the  known  cosmos :    and  if  death  has 

131 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

power  over  it,  there  is  nothing  which  death 
spares :  it  can  undo  the  utmost  which  the 
divine  will  has  wrought."  Destruction  of 
personality  means  extinction  of  being  which 
means  waste,  and  nature  knows  no  waste. 
Evolution's  culmination,  the  prophecies  from 
humanity's  incompleteness,  affections,  aspi- 
rations, moral  sense,  and  Kevelation's  posi- 
tive assurances  would  all  be  mocking  lies 
were  personality  lost.  For  there  is  no  mid- 
dle ground.  Logically,  it  must  be  either 
personal  immortality  or  annihilation.  So 
that  if  we  are  to  survive  at  all,  we  can  sing 
with  confidence  Tennyson's  refrain, — 

"  That  each,  who  seems  a  separate  whole, 
Should  move  his  rounds,  and  fusing  all 
The  skirts  of  self  again,  should  fall 
Eemerging  in  the  general  Soul, 
Is  faith  as  vague  as  all  unsweet : 
Eternal  form  shall  still  divide 
The  eternal  soul  from  all  beside, 
And  I  shall  know  him  when  we  meet." 


132 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 


IV 

THE  PREDICTIONS  OF  RELIGION 

Although  faith  thus  sinks  her  founda- 
tion and  rears  the  body  of  her  pyramid  of 
intelligent  confidence  in  the  realms  of 
science  and  philosophy,  yet  the  summit  and 
capstone  of  the  pyramid,  that  pierce  the 
clouds,  she  finds  only  in  the  moral  and  the- 
ological predictions ;  for  the  question  of 
immortality  rests,  as  its  climax,  on  the 
character  of  God  and  on  our  moral  sense. 
Our  great  unshakable  confidence,  after  all, 
is  found  in  an  intelligent  trust  in  infinite 
love  and  goodness. 

What  then,  are  the  predictions  from  this 
highest  realm  ?  First  the  positive  declara- 
tion of  man's  immortality  by  divine  revela- 
tion. We  must  admit  that  all  the  civilized 
nations  of  the  globe  have  accepted  this  dis- 
tinct revelation  as  divinely  given  in  the 
Scriptures.  Scholars  differ  as  to  the  man- 
ner and  fullness  of  inspiration,  and  as  to 
the  interpretation  of  different  portions  ;  yet 

1 35 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

all  Christendom  agrees  that  the  Bible  con- 
tains the  word  of  God,  and  distinctly  an- 
nounces the  fact  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  This  revelation  of  the  future  life  be- 
gins dimly  in  the  Scriptures,  but  burns  more 
and  more  brightly  until  it  bursts  forth  in 
the  effulgence  of  the  promises  of  Christ,  and 
the  elucidations  of  Saint  Paul.  Now  here 
is  a  tangible  test  for  each  seeker  after  truth 
to  submit  to  himself, — Can  I  not,  at  least, 
trust  the  sum  and  substance  of  that  marvel- 
lous Book  ?  When  I  consider  its  internal 
and  external  evidences,  its  unique  history 
down  the  ages,  its  transformation  of  every 
civilization  in  which  it  has  been  placed,  its 
acceptance  by  the  highest  culture  of  the 
civilized  world,  and  above  all,  the  way  it 
"finds  me,"  speaks  to  the  depths  of  con- 
science and  soul,  fits  everjr  crevice  of  the 
heart  as  though  the  same  author  had  created 
both, — can  I  not  rest  on  its  distinct  revela- 
tion? 

Then,  add  to  this,  next,  the  witness  of 
the  resurrection  of  Christ.  Granting  that 
the  whole  question  of  our  immortality  does 
not  rest  upon  the  historic  reality  of  that 
one  event,  yet  that  resurrection,  if  true,  es- 
tablishes life  hereafter  beyond  a  doubt.    If 

136 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

a  dead  man  did  rise  once,  it  is  proved,  at 
least,  that  life  can  be  evolved  from  death. 
Whether  it  will  be  in  all  other  cases,  must 
be  established  from  other  inferences ;  yet  it 
is  a  tremendous  gain  to  know  that  it  can  be 
done  because  it  once  has  been  done.  Now 
on  this  whole  subject,  there  is  and  probably 
always  will  be  two  attitudes ; — that  of 
those  who  declare  that  the  evidence  given 
in  the  Bible,  while  sufficient  to  establish 
ordinary  historical  occurrences,  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  establish  such  a  stupendous  event 
that  contradicts  all  human  experience,  and 
that  the  resurrection  would  never  have  been 
believed,  had  it  not  fallen  upon  the  great 
longing  and  aspiration  of  the  human  heart 
for  immortality :  and  the  other  attitude  of 
those  that  reply  that  no  stupendous  event 
could  ever  be  established  should  we  take 
such  a  position,  that  humanity  is  accepting 
every-day  facts  that  flatly  contradict  all 
previous  experience  of  the  race,  that  the 
only  fair  way  is  to  test  the  evidence  and  ac- 
cept the  result.  That  such  a  resurrection 
is  possible  depends  entirely  on  whether 
there  is  a  God  or  not.  The  universe  of 
matter  and  life  cannot  be  explained  with- 
out assuming  the  existence  of  God.     If  so, 

137 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

He  must  be  the  master,  not  the  slave  of  His 
own  creation.  He  must  be  able  to  modify, 
or  work  in  higher  harmony  with  nature's 
laws.  Therefore  the  resurrection  is  possi- 
ble. As  to  whether  God  would  perform 
such  an  astounding  miracle  depends  on  the 
need  of  it  in  His  own  omniscience,  and  on 
the  historical  fact  whether  He  has  actually 
done  so  or  not.  We  are  thus  brought  down 
to  the  question  of  fact. 

But  before  examining  the  evidence,  re- 
member that  even  if  the  corporeal  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ  should  be  ever  conclusively 
disproved,  yet  the  fervent  sincere  proclama- 
tion of  it  and  belief  in  it  thus  far,  still  wit- 
nesses in  one  way  to  immortality,  in  show- 
ing the  tremendous  conviction  of  all  Chris- 
tendom that  such  a  character  as  that  of  Jesus 
Christ's  could  not  die,  that  such  a  sublime 
personality  of  wisdom,  goodness,  self-sacri- 
fice could  never  end,  but  must  be  at  least 
spiritually  surviving,  confirming  thus  again 
that  innate  conviction  that  what  is  inher- 
ently excellent  is  imperishable.  Then,  let 
us  clearly  understand  also,  that  even  after 
the  evidence  is  examined  on  both  sides,  the 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  Christ's  resurrec- 
tion depends  largely  on  individual  sympathy 

138 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

and  prejudice  for  or  against.  Neither  party 
will  succeed  in  convincing  the  other,  as  un- 
derlying the  ultimate  decision  is  generally  a 
predisposition  to  believe  or  disbelieve.  But 
in  all  fairness  we  should  remember  that 
there  is  perhaps  as  much  danger  from  prej- 
udice against  any  supernatural  occurrence, 
as  there  is  from  the  over-eagerness  to  wel- 
come such  a  fulfillment  of  the  longing  for  a 
future  life.  We  therefore  see  it  continually 
demonstrated  that  those  who  first  come  into 
perfect  sympathy  with  the  spiritual  charac- 
ter of  Christ,  have  little  difficulty  with  the 
fact  of  the  resurrection,  stupendous  though 
it  be.  The  truest  way  to  realize  the  truth 
of  the  resurrection  is  to  commence  with 
Christ  Himself,  and  ask, — How  can  we  ac- 
count for  the  marvellous  character  of  Jesus  ? 
He  Himself,  it  seems  to  us,  is  the  greater 
miracle;  resurrection  only  the  appropriate 
logical  sequence.  How  can  we  account  for 
His  astounding  wisdom,  which  the  ages  pre- 
ceding never  discovered,  and  which  the  ages 
succeeding  have  never  exhausted.  The  sum 
total  of  His  teaching  stands  alone  in  all 
space  and  time.  Other  great  sages  caught 
little  glimpses;  but  He  alone  presented  a 
completed  revelation  of  past,  present  and 

139 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

future.  They  were  but  starlight ;  He,  noon- 
day. Think  of  a  peasant  of  Palestine,  known 
as  the  carpenter,  stepping  out  from  the  limi- 
tations of  Nazareth  and  revealing  the  stu- 
pendous revelation  of  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
and  that  that  Kingdom  was  paternal,  uni- 
versal, coextensive  with  the  race ;  revealing 
that  the  infinite  Creator  was  the  all-Father 
vitally  interested  in  each  individual ;  that 
He  was  the  self-atoning  God,  working  out 
the  salvation  of  the  race ;  that  man  was  in- 
finitely precious,  could  be  regenerated, 
transformed ;  and  enunciating  vast  princi- 
ples that  to  this  day  underlie  all  social  and 
spiritual  progress  of  the  race !  Add  to  this 
His  own  perfect  life  of  absolute  devotion  to 
God  and  self-sacrifice  to  man,  a  life  acknowl- 
edged by  friend  and  foe  alike  to  be  sepa- 
rated from  all  the  rest  of  humanity  by  its 
spotless  purity  and  absolute  self-abnegation. 
Think  of  such  a  character  not  only  never 
convicted  by  his  enemies  of  sin,  but  declar- 
ing that  He  Himself  was  unconscious  of  the 
slightest  stain,  absolutely  perfect  in  His 
heart's  depths.  How  can  we  explain  such  a 
character  ?  Will  heredity  and  environment, 
David's  line  and  Nazareth,  produce  such  a 
unique  life,  separated  by  its  perfection  from 

140 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

all  the  rest  of  the  race  ?  Will  self-delusion 
account  for  one  whose  wisdom  still  astounds 
the  world  ?  Would  any  impostor  sacrifice 
himself  to  the  uttermost  ?  There  is  but 
one  reasonable  explanation,  that  of  His  own, 
that  He  was  God  in  flesh,  the  revelation,  the 
manifestation  of  the  infinite  Creator  in  time. 
When  one  obtains  this  inner  view  of  Christ's 
character,  when  one  follows  Him  through 
that  transcendent  gospel  of  Saint  John's, 
which  breathes  His  spirit,  and  leads  us  into 
the  Holy  of  Holies  of  His  thoughts,  motives 
and  aspirations,  Christ  Himself  becomes  the 
miracle,  His  resurrection  only  the  logical 
inference.  Thus,  Christ  Himself  is  the  first 
and  great  witness  to  His  own  resurrection. 

But  next  turn  and  examine  the  other  wit- 
nesses. Consider  fairly  the  following  facts, 
— the  moral  character  of  the  witnesses,  their 
number,  the  many  among  them  with  dis- 
cerning minds  and  intelligent  ability,  their 
personal  testimony  to  facts  seen  by  their 
own  eyes,  the  agreement  of  the  sum  total 
of  their  evidence  yet  with  natural  dis- 
crepancies showing  it  was  not  prearranged, 
the  many  tribunals  before  which  they  gave 
this  evidence,  the  fact  that  they  bore  this 
testimony  right    on    the    spot,   openly  in 

141 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Jerusalem,  that  they  gave  it  immediately, — 
within  three  days  after  the  death,  the  re- 
peated challenging  of  this  evidence,  the 
straightforward  simplicity  and  naivete  of 
their  declaration,  the  total  contradiction  it 
was  to  their  own  expectations,  the  absence 
of  all  interested  motives,  the  sudden  trans- 
formation wrought  in  the  disciples  from 
cowards  to  martyrs,  the  persistence  of  their 
testimony  through  tortures  even  unto  death, 
the  conquest  of  that  resurrection  over  other 
religions  and  civilizations,  the  historic  wit- 
ness of  Christendom  to-day,  the  fact  of  the 
highest  nations  that  represent  the  climax  of 
culture  and  civilization  accepting  it  in  gen- 
eral,— and  see  whether  all  these  facts,  to- 
gether with  the  marvellous  character  of 
Christ  Himself,  are  not  sufficient  to  show 
that  the  resurrection  was  a  historic  reality. 
Human  immortality,  then,  on  a  compre- 
hensive view  is  assured  in  any  event.  Dis- 
prove Christ's  bodily  resurrection,  and  His 
spiritual  resurrection  still  suffices  to  pledge 
our  spiritual  immortality.  Disprove  both 
physical  and  spiritual  reappearing,  and  we 
are  still  immortal  from  our  own  nature  as 
evidenced  by  the  other  predictions  of  science, 
philosophy  and  religion.    But  accept  Christ's 

142 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

resurrection,  and  we  are  morally  certain, 
and  to  disprove  this  one  must  disprove  all 
this  accumulation  of  evidence  that  has 
proved  sufficient  for  the  mass  of  Christen- 
dom all  down  the  ages. 

Then,  in  addition  to  the  witness  of  rev- 
elation and  resurrection  stands  the  con- 
firmation that  comes  from  the  great  moral 
argument,  arising  from  the  evidence  of  the 
sublime  moral  sense  found  in  every  human 
being.  One  of  the  most  striking  character- 
istics of  this  sense  is  the  universal  possession 
of  that  vast  overwhelming  idea  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  With  few  exceptions,  that  may 
be  due  to  lack  of  thorough  investigation  and 
that  only  prove  the  rule,  no  individual  can 
be  found  on  the  globe  who  does  not  feel 
instinctively  that  God  exists.  No  matter 
how  separated  from  all  other  members  of 
the  race,  each  heart  rises  alone  to  feel  there 
is  a  great  moral  Being  in  existence.  This 
has  been  repeatedly  tested.  Psychologists 
have  taken  the  deaf,  dumb  and  blind,  and 
carefully  forbidden  any  reference  whatever 
to  the  existence  of  a  divine  Being,  and  yet 
in  after  years  the  afflicted  one  has  revealed 
that  he  has  felt  and  known  God's  existence 
in  his  heart  all  the  while.     In  every  such 

143 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

case  the  result  has  been  the  same  as  in  that 
familiar  test  in  Boston,  where  for  twelve 
years  they  kept  a  little  girl  who  was  deaf, 
dumb  and  blind  in  what  they  supposed  was 
total  ignorance  of  any  higher  Being,  and 
then  took  her  to  the  beloved  Phillips  Brooks 
to  have  God's  existence  revealed  to  her, 
yet,  who,  when  the  Bishop  explained  to  her 
simply  and  tenderly  God's  Being  and  Na- 
ture, at  once  exclaimed, — "  Oh !  I  never  knew 
His  name  before,  but  I  always  knew  Him  !  " 
"What  does  this  universal  possession  of  this 
idea  of  God  prove  but  that  it  was  stamped 
by  God  on  the  human  spirit  which  feels  and 
claims  its  kinship  with  its  eternal  Creator  ? 
But  with  this  idea  of  God  is  found  also  a 
sense  of  responsibility  towards  Him.  Of  all 
man's  equipment,  this  terrible,  awe-inspiring, 
majestic  sense  of  moral  obligation,  the  sense 
of  Duty,  the  Categorical  Imperative  is  the 
most  impressive.  "  Two  things  there  are," 
says  Kant,  "  which,  the  oftener  and  the 
more  steadfastly  we  consider  them  fill  the 
mind  with  an  ever  new  and  ever  rising 
admiration  and  reverence :  the  starry  heaven 
above,  and  the  moral  law  within.  ...  In 
the  former,  the  first  view  of  a  countless 
multitude  of  worlds,  annihilates,  as  it  were, 

144 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

my  importance  as  an  animal  creation.  The 
other,  on  the  contrary,  immeasurably  ele- 
vates my  worth  as  an  intelligence :  and  this 
through  my  personality,  in  which  the  moral 
law  reveals  to  me  a  life  independent  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  .  .  .  which  is  not  re- 
stricted by  the  conditions  and  limits  of  this 
life,  but  stretches  out  to  eternity."  In 
thinking  of  God,  immortality  and  duty, 
George  Eliot  exclaimed, — "  How  incon- 
ceivable the  first,  how  unbelievable  the 
second,  yet  how  peremptory  and  absolute 
the  third  !  "  But  how  was  it  that  she  did 
not  see  that  the  fact  of  the  third  being  thus 
peremptory  and  absolute  argues  the  ex- 
istence of  the  other  two  ?  For  whence 
comes  this  sense  of  moral  obligation,  this 
absolutely  imperative  command  to  sanction 
right,  reject  evil,  and  to  be  held  personally 
responsible  ?  Not  from  the  social  instincts 
of  the  brute  modified  under  human  con- 
ditions, not  from  the  gradual  evolution  of 
sympathy  in  place  of  primeval  antagonism, 
for  it  was  this  commanding  sense  all  along, 
to  choose  the  higher  impulse,  that  accom- 
plished this  development,  producing  itself 
the  modified  instincts  and  continuing  to 
work    upon    them.     For    otherwise    what 

145 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

induced  man  to  make  the  ethical  choice  of 
good  ?  No  more  can  we  say  that  it  was 
developed  out  of  "  the  necessities  of  social 
welfare  "  ;  for  social  welfare  demands  only 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  and  yet  to-day 
this  sense  makes  us  flatly  antagonize  this 
welfare,  by  prolonging  the  existences  of  the 
hopelessly  diseased,  deformed  imbeciles  and 
the  extremely  aged  out  of  reverence  to  the 
sacredness  of  human  life.  This  moral  sense 
did  not  develop  from  social  welfare  when  it 
has  and  does  go  directly  against  social  wel- 
fare. Therefore  the  only  explanation  of 
this  awe-inspiring  idea  of  moral  duty,  com- 
ing not  from  within  nor  around  us,  is  that 
it  descended  to  us  from  the  infinite  Moral 
Being,  the  "  true  Light  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  Now 
the  very  grandeur  of  such  an  equipment 
argues  a  sphere  worthy  of  its  completion. 
This  august  supreme  court  within,  this 
sense  of  personal  freedom,  responsibility, 
this  moral  law,  probation,  duty  of  choice, 
distinguishing  man  from  animals,  is  too  stu- 
pendous an  endowment  for  this  little  animal 
life.  Man,  as  he  stands,  is  overfitted  for 
such  an  ephemeral  existence;  his  outfit  is 
in  excess  of  earthly  moral  requirements,  for 

146 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

many  decisions  are  above  any  relation  to 
the  mere  effects  on  social  well-being,  as 
when  he  decides  and  judges  on  the  purity 
of  personal  motives,  an  ideal  sense  of 
honor  and  self-obligation  even  if  alone  on 
a  desert  isle.  We  are  equipped  like  an 
ocean  steamer  in  a  small  bay,  revealing 
that  we  were  not  intended  merely  to  cross 
the  bay,  but  to  pass  out  through  the  nar- 
rows and  traverse  the  mighty  ocean  be- 
yond. 

The  mandates  of  this  moral  sense  also 
confirm  a  hereafter.  No  matter  how  per- 
verted, or  beclouded  with  doubt,  there  is 
one  conviction  deep  down  in  every  heart 
that  it  is  always  right  to  do  right  for  its 
own  sake,  wrong  to  do  wrong,  and  that 
these  truths  are  eternal  verities,  not  limited 
by  this  little  life  but  to  be  vindicated  here- 
after. This  moral  sense  demands  that  God 
be  perfect,  this  world  the  best  possible  un- 
der the  conditions  and  evil  only  a  concealed 
form  of  higher  good ;  but  if  death  ends  all, 
then  death  is  an  unmitigated  evil,  evil  re- 
mains unremedied,  and  the  moral  sense 
stands  outraged  by  right  and  wrong 
never  being  vindicated.  Likewise,  the  per- 
sonal commands  of  this  moral  sense  upon 

147 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

each  one  of  us  carries  us  logically  forward 
to  eternity  for  its  completion.  We  grow 
in  ideals  of  character.  Each  advance  only 
raises  a  higher  code,  until  we  perceive  that 
our  moral  sense  demands  perfection,  and 
will  never  be  satisfied  with  anything  less. 
We  acknowledge  this  demand  as  authorita- 
tive, reasonable,  and  sublime;  but  perfec- 
tion is  impossible  under  the  conditions  and 
limitations  of  earthly  existence.  It  is  only 
attainable  as  a  gradual  approach  towards  a 
distant  goal.  Since  then  this  God-given 
sense  exacts  perfection,  which  is  impossible 
of  realization  here,  there  must  be  a  future 
existence  where  it  is  attained.  Or,  as  Kant 
expresses  it, — absolute  virtue  and  a  moral 
Being  imply  progress  of  absolute  virtue 
towards  moral  Being.  This  completed 
process  is  impossible  except  on  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  the  same  being.  "  Das 
hochste  Gut  ist,  praktisch,  nur  unter  der 
Yoraussetzung  der  Unsterblichkeit  der 
Seele  moglich ;  mithin  diese,  als  unzer- 
treunlich  mit  dem  moralischen  gesetz  ver- 
bunden,  ein  Postulat  der  reinem  praktischen 
Vernuft." 

We  have  seen  that  one  gathers  an  increas- 

148 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

ing  conviction  of  immortality  when  he 
studies  the  nature  of  God's  works  in  the 
universe ;  still  more,  when  he  studies  the 
nature  of  man ;  but,  most  of  all  will  he  feel 
this  assurance,  when,  at  last,  he  ascends  to 
study  the  nature  of  God.  Here  faith 
reaches  the  final  ground  of  moral  certainty, 
when,  after  mounting  through  nature  and 
man,  it  rests,  at  last,  in  the  great  throbbing 
Heart  of  the  universe, — the  moral  character 
of  God.  Even  for  an  atheist,  there  is  prob- 
ability of  immortality  from  nature  and  man ; 
but  once  grant  the  existence  of  God,  and 
the  probability  becomes  a  moral  certainty. 
For  if  there  is  one  supreme  God,  He  must 
be  perfect.  If  perfect,  each  one  of  His 
attributes  proves  upon  examination  to  pledge 
man's  survival  hereafter.  First,  God  is 
infinite  in  wisdom.  Can  any  reasonable 
conception  of  wisdom  justify  the  annihila- 
tion of  humanity  ?  Would  a  wise  God 
create  matter  to  last  billions  of  ages,  and 
allow  mind  and  spirit,  resembling  His  own, 
to  perish  after  life's  brief  day  ?  Would  it 
be  wise,  even  as  regards  His  own  glory? 
Is  there  any  glory  in  a  King  ruling  over  a 
vast  cemetery  ?  Would  any  sane  monarch 
execute  his  subjects  preferring  to  reign  over 

149 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

corpses  instead  of  countless  myriads  of  liv- 
ing subjects,  praising  him  day  and  night, 
carrying  out  his  will,  conquering  evil  and 
finally  bringing  all  things  under  his  feet  ? 
Would  it  be  wise  for  the  Creator  to  evolve 
these  vast  processes  that  we  have  reviewed 
to  produce  and  improve  man,  only  to  an- 
nihilate him?  Would  not  this  be  foolish 
waste  of  energy, — self -defeat  on  account  of 
one's  own  inability.  Would  it  be  wise  to 
create  beings  endowed  for  a  sphere  that 
they  could  never  reach,  with  eternal  capa- 
bilities, potentialities  of  thought,  feeling 
and  will,  that  were  only  to  be  wasted  by 
sudden  extinction  at  death  ?  Yet  wisdom 
might  be  able  to  know  all  this  and  yet  be 
helpless  to  act.  But  when  you  couple  God's 
attribute  of  power  with  His  wisdom,  we 
cannot  conceive  their  union  not  pledging 
man's  future  life. 

Next  consider  God's  attribute  of  holi- 
ness,— absolute  rightness  in  Himself  and  in 
all  His  actions, — together  with  His  justice 
which  is  a  mode  of  His  holiness.  His  per- 
fection demands  that  He  be  thus  holy  and 
just ;  whenever  we  doubt  it,  it  is  because 
we  judge  Him  by  His  unfinished  plan,  by 
the  scaffolding  instead  of  the  building,  by  a 

150 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

segment  instead  of  a  whole,  forgetting  that 
He  says  to  us, — 

"  Tu  n'as  qu'un  jour  pour  etre  juste. 
J'ai  Peternite  devant  Moi." 

Can  a  holy  and  just  God  end  this  world 
the  way  it  is  without  righting  it  hereafter  ? 
That  there  must  be  ultimate  justice  some- 
where in  the  universe  has  been  the  profound 
imperative  conviction  of  all  humanity  dur- 
ing all  time.  Man  can  endure  countless 
wrongs  and  apparent  moral  contradictions 
in  the  firm  conviction  that  the  Creator  will 
vindicate  the  right;  but  even  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  terrible  possibility  that  justice 
never  will  be  done,  that  wrong  will  always 
triumph  over  right,  is  unthinkable  and  un- 
endurable, for  it  leaves  creation  a  mad 
chaos.  All  the  great  religions  of  the  race, 
all  its  progressive  codes  of  law,  all  its 
varied  literatures,  all  its  representations  of 
ideals  in  the  evolution  of  the  theatre,  re- 
veal this  underlying  conviction  that  justice 
must  ultimately  be  accomplished.  Nor  will 
any  "  set  of  ideas  for  generations  "  account 
for  this  conviction,  for  man  has  not  seen 
justice  vindicated  here,  but  his  experience 

151 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

has  been  largely  that  of  injustice,  yet  he 
has  clung  to  this  conviction  in  spite  of 
cruel  millenniums  to  the  contrary,  showing 
this  belief  to  be  a  profound  intuition  of  the 
moral  constitution.  Now  then,  is  justice 
accomplished  in  this  world  ?  No  one  can 
take  a  comprehensive  view  of  life  and  main- 
tain it.  The  theory  of  "  compensation  " 
whereby  all  lives  are  equalized  in  the  sum 
total  of  heart  happiness,  is  disproved  by 
fact.  Nor  does  one  receive  his  reward  and 
punishment  here.  Look  around  at  real  life. 
One  often  suffers  for  another's  sin ;  while 
another  reaps  another's  toil.  Even  penal- 
ties are  unequal  for  the  same  offense ;  the 
woman  being  ostracized,  the  man  condoned 
for  the  same  offense.  A  single  mistake 
often  ruins  a  whole  life,  and  worse  still, 
those  of  loved  ones  linked  with  it.  Many 
have  no  chance  in  life,  being  handicapped 
by  heredity  and  environment,  such  as  the 
badly  born,  the  degenerates,  the  incurable, 
the  insane,  those  reared  in  reeking  tene- 
ments, and  hot-beds  of  filth  and  vice. 
Think  of  the  sum  total  of  human  misery  in 
a  single  day  of  tortured  bodies,  minds  and 
affections,  betrayed  confidences,  broken 
hearts,  wronged  innocency  and  helplessness, 

152 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

crime,  remorse,  suicide,  death.  Add  to  this 
that  sad  mystery  of  the  horrible  ravages 
and  slaughter  of  the  whole  brute  creation 
by  both  their  own  kind  and  man.  Then 
look  back  through  the  ages  and  think  of  all 
the  tortures  of  soul  and  body  endured  from 
such  hideous  injustices  as  those  of  witch- 
craft, inquisitions,  slavery,  tyranny,  perse- 
cutions, martyrdoms.  Think  of  a  Huss  at 
the  stake  and  a  Borgia  wearing  the  tiara ;  a 
Savonarola  on  the  scaffold,  and  a  Medici  in 
the  palace ;  a  Paul  beheaded,  and  a  Nero 
on  the  throne;  a  Christ  crucified  and  an 
Augustus  ruling  the  world, — and  tell  me 
whether  any  intelligent  man  can  maintain 
the  theory  of  • "  compensation,"  or  declare 
that  justice  is  here  vindicated.  If  not,  then 
it  must  be  hereafter.  Despite  the  denial  of 
some  modern  philosophers,  the  old  alterna- 
tive stands, — either  man  is  immortal  or  God 
unjust.  Were  this  existence  all,  life  would 
often  be  a  horrible  nightmare,  suicide  a 
boon,  the  world  a  crime,  ethical  principles 
obliterated,  and  villainy  often  more  profita- 
ble than  saintliness.  But  if  there  be  another 
life,  then  we  can  believe  in  a  just  and  holy 
God  whose  justice  requires  only  time  to 
reveal  its  vindication,  and  we  face  all  this 

153 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

horror,  knowing  there  is  still  love  at  the 
heart  of  the  universe  which  is  working  out 
a  greater  good,  that  God's  object  here  is  not 
happiness  but  character,  not  to  create  a 
playground  but  a  school,  that  He  is  the 
great  Father,  Physician,  Schoolmaster, 
knowing  that  our  development  demands 
discipline  and  trust,  and  working,  above  all, 
for  the  evolution  of  character  and  soul  out 
of  all  the  sufferings  of  this  life. 

Next  consider  God's  attribute  of  good- 
ness. But  here  again,  we  are  met  by  the 
challenge  of  suffering  humanity, — How  do 
you  know  that  God  is  good  ?  We  challenge 
such  an  attribute  in  the  face  of  such  an 
agonized  world.  Because,  first  of  all, — we 
answer, — because  of  the  goodness  that 
already  exists  in  this  earth.  That  noble 
company  of  prophets,  apostles,  saints,  mar- 
tyrs, reformers,  missionaries,  philanthropists 
down  through  the  ages  who  have  sacrificed 
everything  for  the  welfare  of  humanity,  as 
well  as  the  secret  heroisms,  the  unheralded 
self-sacrifices  in  heart  and  home, — sum  up  a 
magnificent  total  of  goodness.  Whence 
comes  it  ?  It  could  not  have  sprung  up  and 
reached  such  development  alone,  or  against 
the  Creator's  wish.     To  make  man  good, 

154 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

and  God  not,  would  be  to  make  the  crea- 
ture better  than  the  Creator,  which  blas- 
phemy the  moral  instinct  instantly  repudi- 
ates. Therefore  we  feel  that  God  must  be 
back  of  all  earthly  goodness,  implanting  the 
germs,  developing  them,  and  thereby  reveal- 
ing His  own  nature. 

Then  the  progressive  amelioration  of  the 
world's  woe,  the  many  ways  in  which  evil 
is  overruled  for  ultimate  good  even  here, — 
being  used  for  a  distinct  moral  purpose  of 
soul  discipline,  the  results  and  prophecies  of 
evolution,  the  aggregate  of  nature,  revela- 
tion, experience,  the  individual  heart  his- 
tory of  each  soul  with  its  Maker,  and 
above  all  the  revelation  of  God's  disposi- 
tion through  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ, 
— all  these  make  the  heart  certain,  in  the 
depths  of  its  consciousness,  even  in  the 
face  of  mystery  that  God  must  be  good, 
and  enables  the  discerning  to  cry, — "  Even 
though  He  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
Him." 

But  even  granting  all  this,  the  earnest 
thinker  still  stumbles  over  that  horrible 
darkest  problem  of  the  existence  of  evil, — 
how  God,  if  good,  can  allow  sin  and  suffer- 
ing in  His  universe.     All  down  the  ages 

155 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

humanity  has  agonized  over  this  same 
query,  the  consciousness  within  convincing 
one  that  God  must  be  good,  but  the  dis- 
torted world  contradicting  it.  Some  emi- 
nent scholars,  even  to-day,  take  refuge  in 
what  is  the  old  Zoroastrian,  Egyptian  and 
Manichean  hypothesis  of  two  rival  Gods, — 
a  great  Bad  God  perpetually  marring  the 
work  of  the  beneficent  Creator.  But  this 
only  increases  the  difficulty.  For  if  God 
created  such  an  evil  equal,  He  would  Him- 
self be  evil.  If  this  evil  God  is  uncreated, 
issuing  himself  out  of  eternity's  depths,  he 
would  be  a  self-contradiction ;  for,  when  we 
necessarily  ascribe  wisdom  and  power  to  the 
one  Creator  of  a  harmonious  creation,  we 
necessarily  exclude  by  that  very  definition, 
any  independent  infinite  malevolence  and 
injustice.  Moreover,  an  infinite  evil  being 
would  be  one  infinitely  imperfect.  The 
knowledge  of  an  infinitely  imperfect  being 
would  be  ignorance,  his  power,  impotence ; 
therefore  he  could  have  neither  wisdom  nor 
ability  to  oppose  God.  Yet  even  John 
Stuart  Mill  holds  a  doctrine  akin  to  this 
when  he  declares  that  if  God  is  good,  then 
He  is  "a  mind  whose  power  over  the 
materials  was  not  absolute,"  limited  as  to 

i56 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

ability  and  wisdom.  Were  God's  mind 
limited,  would  He  be  able  to  create  a  hu- 
man mind  better  than  His  own,  able  thus  to 
point  out  where  He  has  failed,  superior  to 
its  Creator  ?  If  His  power  were  limited, 
would  not  evil  appear  to  be  forced  into 
nature,  working  defeat  and  contradiction, 
instead  of,  as  we  see,  having  been  deliber- 
ately placed  in  its  mechanism  and  workings 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  plan  ?  This 
solution,  therefore,  is  as  illogical  as  it  is 
comfortless.  In  facing  this  problem,  we 
must  be  careful  not  to  exaggerate  the  evil 
in  the  universe,  and  speak  as  though  it  out- 
weighed the  good,  or  as  though  one  suffer- 
ing outbalanced  ninety  and  nine  joys  that 
come  continually  through  the  senses,  in- 
tellect and  heart.  We  must  not  forget  also 
that  much  of  the  evil  has  diminished  during 
the  evolution  of  the  race  by  increasing 
science  and  philanthropy,  and  will  continue 
to  diminish,  its  presence  having  stimulated 
and  called  forth  much  of  man's  develop- 
ment. Nor  must  we  here,  any  more  than 
in  the  former  case  of  God's  justice,  judge 
evil  by  our  little  day,  but  only  by  its  use, 
purpose,  and  final  outcome.  And  it  is  this 
thought    that    brings    us    to    the    nearest 

157 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

solution  that  we  can  reach  of  this  problem. 
Were  suffering  absolutely  meaningless,  un- 
necessary, blind,  then  God  could  not  be  good. 
But  if  it  has  a  moral  purpose,  then  its  ex- 
istence is  justified,  and  God's  goodness  is 
vindicated  in  the  outcome.  Both  history 
and  experience  show  us  that  evil  is  un- 
doubtedly necessary  as  a  condition  for  ob- 
taining a  higher  good,  for  moral  probation, 
freedom  of  choice,  discipline,  purification, 
and  trust.  Development  demands  trust, 
and  trust  is  impossible  except  under  mys- 
tery. If  we  sanction  the  surgeon  operating 
to  save  life,  the  teacher  compelling  tasks  for 
mind  development,  the  parent  disciplining 
for  future  character,  shall  not  we  grant  the 
infinite  Creator  the  same  higher  right  ? 
Every  day  we  see  it  confirmed  that  pros- 
perity deteriorates,  and  adversity  brings 
out  soul  qualities.  Thus  the  intelligent 
philosophic  mind,  looking  through  evil  to 
its  evident  purpose,  is  convinced  from  all 
the  other  assurances  of  the  universe,  that 
evil  is  being  used,  dominated,  planned  with 
infinite  wisdom  and  love  for  a  higher 
good,  and  that  therefore  that  God,  in 
spite  of  the  existence  of  evil,  is  Himself 
good. 

158 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

"  All  nature  is  but  art  unknown  to  thee, 
All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst 

not  see, 
All  discord,  harmony  not  understood, 
All  partial  evil,  universal  good." 

If  so,  then,  does  not  God's  goodness  guar- 
antee  man's  immortality  ?  Can  there  be 
any  goodness  in  creating  aspiring  spirits, 
allowing  them  to  enter  into  the  joy  of  exists 
ence,  disciplining  and  developing  them,  en- 
dowing them  with  eternal  cravings  and 
affections,  and  then  suddenly  violating  all 
intimations,  blasting  all  aspirations,  and 
crushing  all  of  them  into  nothingness? 
Will  a  good  God  annihilate  children  that 
lift  up  imploring  arms  to  Him  ?  Punish, 
discipline,  educate  them?  Yes.  But  kill 
them?  Never!  That  would  be  a  Herod, 
not  a  Christ.  If  the  Egyptian  Princess  de- 
fied a  throne  in  order  to  save  the  helpless 
babe  that  smiled  up  at  her  from  the  bul- 
rushes, if  the  Arab  chieftain  broke  his  law 
and  refused  to  bury  his  baby  girl  alive  be- 
cause she  lifted  her  dimpled  hands  and 
patted  his  cheek, — will  the  God  that  has 
proved  Himself  otherwise  so  good  bury  His 
living  children  forever?    And,  just  as  in 

159 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  case  with  God's  justice,  if  God  is  good, 
He  must  in  eternity  vindicate  that  goodness 
completely,  as  it  is  evident  that  His  good- 
ness is  not  completed  here, — many  lives 
here  being  completely  wrecked,  polluted 
and  ruined  by  sin.  God's  incomplete  good- 
ness here,  therefore,  pledges  its  completion 
in  a  life  hereafter. 

Then,  add  to  these  Divine  attributes, 
God's  other  quality  of  truth.  Would  it  be 
strictly  honest  for  the  Creator  to  have  im- 
planted these  firm  expectations,  aspirations, 
prophecies,  foregleams  in  humanity,  and 
not  contradict  them  if  false  ?  Would  it  be 
truthful  to  implant  instincts  that  are  not 
real  ?  Would  it  be  right  to  allow  genera- 
tion after  generation  from  the  beginning  of 
time  to  lie  down  in  the  certain  confidence 
of  living  hereafter,  and  to  watch  this  belief 
continually  strengthening  down  the  ages,  if 
God  knew  it  were  a  delusion?  Is  it  not 
true  that  not  to  contradict  or  undeceive  a 
child  during  his  whole  lifetime  is  to  sanc- 
tion his  belief  ?  "  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would 
have  told  you." 

But,  above  all,  the  highest  attribute  of 
God  is  love.  All  other  attributes  are  ad- 
jectives ;  this  is  a  noun.    Saint  John  does  not 

160 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

say,  God  is  loving,  but  "  God  is  love."  Love 
does  not  merely  describe  God,  but  is  the 
substance  out  of  which  He  is  made.  All 
other  attributes  are  but  phases  of  this  love. 
Down  through  the  ages  men  have  wor- 
shipped a  distorted  God  of  vengeance  or 
license,  but  gradually  He  has  broken  through 
the  clouds  of  heaven  and  the  mists  of  earth, 
until  to-day  we  see  Him  revealed  through 
Christ  as  the  Father-God,  whose  nature  and 
whose  name  are  love.  If  this  be  true,  we 
not  only  need  God,  but  God  needs  us.  His 
heart's  happiness  is  not  complete  without 
His  children.  "We  are,  then,  able  reverently 
to  sing  not  only, — "  My  Beloved  is  mine," 
but  also, — "And  I  am  His."  Would  not, 
then,  such  a  God  be  infinitely  bereaved 
should  death  rob  Him  of  us  ?  Since  He 
has  all  power  will  He  not  gratify  His  love 
and  bring  us  to  Himself  ?  As  a  perfect 
Being,  He  must  be  always  absolutely  con- 
tented. Could  He  enjoy  such  complete 
blessedness  if  all  His  children  perish  ?  If 
the  heart-rending  shriek  of  maternal  agony 
is  still  resounding  down  the  centuries  from 
the  slaughter  of  the  innocents  at  Bethlehem, 
will  the  all-Father  God  sit  complacent  and 
undisturbed  while  His  entire  human  family 

161 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

is  massacred  by  death  continually  before 
His  eyes  ?  A  mother  may  forget  her  jewels 
or  her  ambitions,  but  is  there  any  danger  of 
her  forgetting  her  sleeping  child,  allowing 
it  to  continue  in  a  trance  or  to  sink  down 
in  water  or  flame  if  she  can  save  it  ?  If 
God  has  endured  already  such  heart  agony 
to  reclaim  us,  is  He  going  to  tranquilly 
allow  us  to  sink  into  annihilation  ?  Here 
is  where  one  reaches  an  absolute  moral  cer- 
tainty although  he  cannot  give  demonstra- 
tive proof.  I  may  not  be  able  to  prove  that 
you  will  not  throw  into  the  ocean  all  the 
fortune  for  which  you  have  toiled  a  life- 
time, or  murder  the  beloved  child  for  whom 
you  have  given  your  life  in  ceaseless  anxiety 
and  sacrifice,  but  I  am  absolutely  morally 
certain  that  you  will  not  deliberately  do 
these  things  unless  insane.  I  cannot  prove 
that  God  does  not  wantonly  throw  away 
our  souls  at  death  because  I  cannot  see  and 
handle  souls  after  death,  but  I  am  abso- 
lutely morally  certain  from  the  way  He  has 
revealed  that  He  values  our  souls  above  all 
price,  that  He  will  not  insanely  destroy 
them.  Professor  Newman  in  his  "  Theism," 
elaborates  this  very  truth  in  lines  of  great 
strength  and  beauty : 

162 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

"  But  if  Virtue  grieve  thus  for  lost  virtue 
justly, 

How  then  must  God,  the  Fountain  of  Vir- 
tue, feel  ? 

If  our  highest  feelings,  and  the  feelings  of 
all  the  holy, 

Guide  rightly  to  the  Divine  heart,  then  it 
would  grieve  likewise, 

And  grieve  eternally,  if  Goodness  perish 
eternally. 

Nay,  and  as  a  man  who  should  live  ten 
thousand  years, 

Sustained    miraculously  amid    perishing 
generations, 

Would  sorrow  perpetually  in  the  perpet- 
ual loss  of  friends, 

Even  so,  some  might  judge  the  Divine 
Heart  likewise 

Would   stint   its  affections  towards   the 
creatures  of  a  day.  .  .  . 

Would  it  not  be  a  yawning  gulf  of  ever- 
increasing  sorrow 

Losing  every  loved  one,  just  when  virtue 
was  ripening, 

And  foreseeing  perpetual  loss,  friend  after 
friend,  forever, 

So  that  all  training  perishes  and  has  to  be 
begun  anew, 

163 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Winning  new  souls  to  virtue,  to  be  lost  as 

soon  as  won  ? 
If  then  we  must  not  doubt  that  the  High- 
est has  deep  love  for  the  holy, 
Such  love  as  man  has  for  man  in  pure  and 

sacred  friendship, 
We  seem  justly  to  infer  that  those  whom 

God  loves  are  deathless ; 
Else  would  the  Divine  blessedness  be  im- 
perfect and  impaired. 
Nor  avails  it  to  reply  by  resting  on  God's 

infinitude, 
Which    easily   supports    sorrows    which 

would  weigh  us  down ; 
For  if  to  promote  Yirtue  be  the  highest 

end  with  the  Creator, 
Then  to  lose  His  own  work,  not  casually 

and  by  exception, 
But  necessarily  and  always,  agrees  not 

with  His  infinitude 
More  than  with  His  Wisdom,  nor  more 

than  with  His  Blessedness. 
In  short,   close  friendship   between  the 

Eternal  and  the  Perishing 
Appears  unseemly  to  the  nature  of  the 

Eternal, 
Whom  it  befits  to  keep  His  beloved,  or 

not  to  love  at  all. 
164 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

But  to  say  God  loveth  no  man,  is  to  make 

religion  vain : 
Hence  it  is  judged  that  '  whatever  God 

loveth,  liveth  with  God.' " 

Summing  up,  then,  we  see  that  all  of  God's 
attributes  of  Wisdom,  Power,  Holiness,  Jus- 
tice, Goodness,  Truth,  and  Blessedness  are 
all  pledged  to  man's  immortality.  As  Kous- 
seau  once  summarized  it, — "  I  believe  in 
God  as  fully  as  I  believe  in  any  other 
truth.  If  God  exists,  He  is  perfect;  if 
He  is  perfect,  He  is  wise,  almighty  and 
just;  if  He  is  just  and  almighty,  my 
soul  is  immortal."  "He  who  believes  in 
a  God,"  says  Kothe,  "  must  believe  in  the 
continuance  of  man  after  death.  Without 
such  a  faith  there  is  no  world  that  would  be 
thinkable  as  an  end  of  God."  And  in  that 
last  solemn  crisis  that  is  steadily  and  surely 
approaching  each  one  of  us,  this,  perhaps, 
will  be  our  greatest  confidence  of  living 
hereafter, — the  character  of  God,  especially 
His  goodness.  As  each  one  feels  Death's 
approach,  he  can  turn  to  his  beloved  ones 
and  say, — I  feel  I  can  trust  God.  I  can 
place  myself  in  His  hands.  Nature,  history, 
revelation,  experience,  and  the  past  com- 

165 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

munion  of  my  own  soul,  all  tell  me  that  He 
is  good.  If  so,  He  will  do  what  is  best  for 
me.  Should  annihilation  be  best,  then  it  is 
best ;  but  I  feel  sure  He  wishes  me,  as  well 
as  I  wish  Him.  I  know  He  will  not  belie 
the  deep  instincts  of  my  soul.  I  can  trust 
His  love,  and  so, — "  Father,  into  Thy  hands 
I  commend  my  spirit." 

The  world  to-day  is  subjecting  every 
realm  to  the  inductive  method.  Facts,  it 
cries,  are  indisputable.  Gather  facts,  clas- 
sify, make  the  logical  inference,  and  the  re- 
sult will  be  truth ;  but,  be  careful  to  gather 
sufficient  facts,  to  see  that  they  are  perti- 
nent, and  properly  interpreted.  This  is  for- 
cible and  true ;  but  we  must  also  remember 
that  a  feeling  is  as  truly  a  fact,  as  a  stone,  a 
sentiment  as  much  of  a  reality  as  a  moun- 
tain. Facts  of  history  are  only  the  object- 
ive results  of  ideas  of  the  mind.  Looking 
back  then,  and  gathering  together  all  these 
facts  from  all  these  three  great  realms  of 
science,  philosophy  and  religion,  can  there 
be  any  fair  interpretation  of  them  all  taken 
cumulatively  that  does  not  indicate  a  future 
existence  ? 

For  many  years  astronomers  were  per- 

166 


The  Predictions  of  Religion 

plexed  to  notice  certain  perturbations  in  the 
far  distant  planet  Uranus  which  were  inex- 
plicable, until  Bouvard  in  1821,  declared 
that  such  disturbances  could  only  be  ex- 
plained on  the  theory  of  gravitation  of 
known  bodies  as  intimating  the  existence  of 
some  vast  undiscovered  planet.  For  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  scientists  continued  to 
observe,  calculate,  predict,  until  in  1846,  Dr. 
Galle,  of  Berlin,  discovered,  just  one  degree 
from  the  predicted  place,  the  enormous 
planet  Neptune,  the  outermost  known 
planet  of  the  solar  system,  totally  invisible 
to  the  naked  eye,  yet  the  third  in  volume 
and  mass,  2,800,000,000  miles  from  the  sun, 
with  a  diameter  of  37,000  miles,  and  a  revo- 
lution of  164  years.  And  although  many 
of  the  precise  prophecies  as  to  its  mass,  dis- 
tance, and  shape  of  orbit  had  to  be  rectified, 
yet  the  general  trend  of  the  predictions 
were  thus  proved  marvellously  exact.  Thus 
the  disturbances  of  this  earthly  life,  the 
perturbations  of  the  human  spirit,  the  gravi- 
tation of  creation,  history,  experience,  all 
point  to  the  drawing  of  some  vast  spirit 
world,  invisible  to  the  human  eye,  yet  ab- 
solutely real  in  its  effects.  And  although 
we  too,  may  have  to  alter  many  conceptions 

167 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

in  regard  to  our  predictions,  yet  the  vast 
reality  must  and  will  stand  sure,  for  on  no 
other  solution  can  the  perturbations  of  this 
world  be  explained.  "  Beloved,  now  are  we 
the  sons  of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  we  shall  be ;  but  we  know  that,  when 
He  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  Him,  for 
we  shall  see  Him  as  He  is." 

"  Sunset  and  evening  star, 
And  one  clear  call  for  me ! 
And  may  there  be  no  moaning  of  the  bar, 
When  I  put  out  to  sea, 

"  But  such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 
Too  full  for  sound  and  foam, 
When  that  which   drew  from  out    the 
boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home. 

"  Twilight  and  evening  bell, 
And  after  that  the  dark ! 
And  may  there  be  no  sadness  of  farewell, 
When  I  embark ; 

"  For  though  from  out  our  bourne  of  time 
and  place 
The  flood  may  bear  me  far, 
I  hope  to  see  my  Pilot  face  to  face 
When  I  have  crossed  the  bar." 

1 68 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 


V 

CONDITIONS  OF  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 

The  last  entry  that  Sir  Walter  Scott  made 
in  his  journal  was,  "  We  slept  reasonably, 

but  on  the  next  morning "     Death  cut 

the  unfinished  sentence  short.  Only  Scott 
himself  knows  what  came  to  him  on  the 
next  morning.  But  this  is  the  natural  and 
eager  inquiry  of  all  humanity, — granting 
that  we  awake,  what  is  there  on  "  the  next 
morning  "  ?  No  sooner  do  mind  and  heart 
feel  certain  of  immortality  than  they  at 
once  ask,  What  will  the  eternal  life  be  like  ? 
It  is  not  enough  to  know  we  will  continue 
to  exist ;  we  desire  to  know  how,  when  and 
where.  We  seek  some  details  of  the  con- 
ditions of  future  existence.  But  here  both 
nature  and  revelation  observe  a  discreet 
mystery,  giving  us  only  partial  surmises  of 
that  spiritual  existence.  And  this  obviously 
for  two  reasons, — in  order  not  to  interfere 
with  this  life,  and  to  prevent  misconceptions 
of  a  sphere  of  which  we  could  not  possibly 

17! 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

understand  the  conditions  since  we  have  had 
no  similar  experience,  and  which  must  neces- 
sarily be  different  from  the  physical  limita- 
tions of  this  present  one. 

The  wisdom  of  this  veiling  of  eternity  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  nearly  all  attempts 
thus  far  to  give  specific  descriptions  of 
future  existence  have  been  far  from  attrac- 
tive, if  not  actually  repellent.  And  this 
because  it  is  a  psychological  law  that  one 
cannot  imagine  what  he  has  not,  in  some 
way,  seen.  Therefore  all  conceptions  of 
the  spiritual  state  consist  in  images  of 
this  world  projected  and  enhanced  in  the 
next,  each  one  bearing  the  stamp  of  its 
peculiar  age  and  conditions.  They  are  for 
the  most  part  grossly  materialistic,  anthro- 
pomorphic and,  above  all,  wearisomely  mo- 
notonous when  tested  by  eternal  duration. 
Eternity  is  a  long  word.  A  billion  mil- 
lenniums is  but  as  one  grain  of  sand  to  the 
seashore,  one  drop  to  the  ocean,  one  tick  of 
a  self-winding  clock.  Some  one  has  tried 
to  give  some  faint  conception  of  it  by  pic- 
turing the  task  of  a  bird  compelled  to  re- 
move this  whole  globe  one  grain  at  a  time, 
returning  only  once  in  every  thousand 
years.    But  if  that  bird  thus  removed  the 

172 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

whole  universe,  eternity  would  be  but  only 
begun.  If,  then,  in  the  few  short  years 
here,  the  child  wearies  of  his  toys,  the  man 
of  his  business,  the  aged  of  pleasure  and 
fame,  if  the  worst  curse  men  can  imagine  is 
to  be  condemned  to  live  on  this  earth,  like 
the  Wandering  Jew  or  the  Flying  Dutch- 
man, for  thousands  of  years,  wearied  of 
everything  and  praying  for  death, — what 
then  can  possibly  be  the  conditions  that 
during  infinite  duration  of  time  will  give 
"  pleasures  f orevermore "  ?  The  pagan 
world  affords  no  hint,  as  its  conceptions  are 
vague,  shadowy,  unreal,  sad  or  grotesque. 
None  of  us  would  find  satisfaction  for  a 
decade,  much  less  for  an  eternity  in  the 
gloomy  Egyptian  halls  of  Osiris,  or  in  the 
Grecian  Olympia,  the  Roman  Elysium,  the 
Norseman's  Yalhalla,  the  Mohammedan's 
Harem,  or  the  Brahman's  Nirvana.  Litera- 
ture, likewise,  although  presenting  many 
magnificent  conceptions,  and  sublime  flights 
of  genius,  fails  to  offer  eternal  attractive- 
ness. We  would  not  wish  to  live  forever 
in  even  Dante's  Paradiso,  with  its  throne 
approached  through  circles  of  ineffable  light, 
nor  in  Milton's  military  heaven  with  its 
shock  of  armies  and  flight  of  legions,  nor  in 

173 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  overwrought  soul  ecstasies  of  com 
munion  portrayed  by  emotional  authors. 
The  conceptions  of  different  individuals, 
likewise,  often  dismay  rather  than  attract 
us.  Each  frames  his  idea  out  of  what  he 
lacks  here.  The  weary  sigh  for  rest,  the 
defeated  for  success,  the  bereaved  for  re- 
union. Saint  John  on  Patmos,  despising  the 
sea  that  exiled  him  from  all  friends,  looked 
up  and  exclaimed, — "  There  shall  be  no  more 
sea ;  "  Robert  Hall  in  constant  pain,  could 
only  think  of  heaven  as  health ;  Wilber- 
force,  hindered  in  his  labors  of  love,  as  per- 
fected affection.  And  even  the  most  spiritual 
character  in  the  depth  of  his  consciousness 
confesses  that  such  conceptions  as  reposing 
on  clouds  and  singing  psalms,  or  marching 
in  processions,  waving  palm  branches,  or 
wandering  through  a  city  even  if  the  streets 
be  of  gold  and  walls  of  jewels,  or  rest- 
ing by  green  pastures  and  still  waters,  or 
communing  in  eternal  social  reunions,  seem 
intolerable  when  conceived  of  as  continuing 
through  countless  millenniums.  When  we 
hear  some  of  these  descriptions  of  supposed 
felicity,  many  feel  like  exclaiming  with  the 
dying  poet  Malherbe,  "  Cease !  Your 
wretched  conceptions  make  me  out  of  con- 

174 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

ceit  with  them  ;  "  or  with  the  Church  mem- 
ber to  the  Puritan  preacher, — "  Your  heaven 
is  my  hell !  "  or  with  Strauss  when  he  re- 
plied to  Frederick  the  Great, — "Pardon, 
sire,  but  I  have  no  desire  to  go  to  Heaven  at 
all ! " 

Yet  while  specific  detailed  descriptions 
have  and  will  fail,  we  are  not,  nevertheless, 
left  in  total  darkness.  We  can  argue  from 
within,  if  not  from  without, — from  the  spir- 
itual traits  of  personality,  that  we  will 
carry  with  us,  and  that  being  spiritual  are 
akin  to  the  spiritual  world.  There  are 
certain  grand  principles  which  can  be 
thrown  forward  into  the  darkness,  like 
luminous  streamers  from  an  enormous 
search-light,  which,  although  not  revealing 
all,  yet  illumine  great  pathways  which 
largely  satisfy  the  soul.  The  one  stupen- 
dous law,  revealed  in  all  creation  from 
whirling  nebulous  matter  to  formation  of 
worlds,  ascending  through  mineral,  vege- 
table and  animal  kingdoms,  from  the 
amoeba  to  man  and  from  man  to  his  high- 
est intellectual  and  spiritual  achievement,  is 
that  of  progress,  progress,  progress.  Why 
then  should  this  vast  universal  law  abruptly 
cease  at  death  ?    Is  God  exhausted  ?    Has 

175 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  infinite  become  finite?  Do  not  the  in- 
exhaustible resources  of  God,  eternity  and 
infinity  make  it  imperative  that  this  law 
should  continue  forever?  This  has  been 
the  fatal  mistake  of  some  theologies  in 
seeming  to  intimate  that  man  becomes 
instantly  finished  and  complete  at  death, 
with  no  further  possibilities  ahead  of  him. 
This  would  be  the  creature  instantly  equal- 
ling the  Creator,  whereas  the  result  of  all 
the  sciences  even  here  is  to  simply  give 
us  hints  of  the  boundless  infinitude  of  space, 
time,  method,  and  of  the  Creator's  being. 
On  the  contrary,  death  instead  of  stopping 
progress,  is  only  a  necessary  condition  to 
allow  it  to  continue.  During  our  lifetime 
here,  we  receive  from  this  world  about  all 
that  it  can  give  us  for  character.  Should 
we  continue  to  live  on  for  ten  thousand 
years,  we  might  become  wiser,  but  not 
necessarily  better.  Nay,  we  might  perhaps 
even  deteriorate  from  familiarity  with 
earthly  conditions  and  repeated  lessons. 
Even  now  the  hour  of  death  has  to  be  left 
uncertain  so  as  to  prevent  our  postponing 
preparation  to  the  last.  Death  therefore  is 
but  the  necessary  bursting  from  earthly 
limitations  to  larger  possibilities,  to  allow 

176 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

us  to  go  on  not  to  stagnation,  but  to 
enlarged  faculties,  unfolded  potentialities, 
and  to  exercise  these  in  an  unlimited  hori- 
zon. Death  is  but  the  gardener  who  trans- 
plants the  chrysanthemum  at  the  right 
stage  of  its  development  from  the  soil 
where  the  approaching  frost  would  blight 
it  to  the  conservatory  where  under  favor- 
able conditions  it  can  go  on  and  reach  its 
full  glorious  consummation.  This  first  and 
great  law  then  of  the  entire  universe  will 
be  the  one  in  which,  with  infinite  varia- 
tions, we  will  continue  forever.  And  from 
the  spiritual  analogies  of  this  world,  we  can 
foresee  that  this  progress  will  continue 
along  three  great  lines, — Love,  Knowledge, 
Service. 

No  matter  what  other  gifts  "vanish 
away,"  love  "  never  f  aileth,"  because  it  is  a 
quality  that  is  inexhaustible,  partaking  of 
the  essence  of  God  Himself.  Just  as  on 
earth  true  affection  grows  continually  in 
depth,  character,  intensity,  self-sacrifice  and 
infinite  yearnings,  so  will  it  continue  in  in- 
creasing ratio  forever,  its  very  capacity 
growing,  developing,  rendering  us  more 
capable  of  higher  and  higher  forms  of  love 
for  God  and  for  the  whole  family  of  God. 

177 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

As  God's  love  for  us  will  never  end,  no 
more  will  ours  for  Him,  but  rather  con- 
tinue to  increase,  for  all  eternity  will  only 
continue  to  reveal  the  depths  of  the  Father's 
heart  and  make  us  more  capable  of  under- 
standing and  returning  His  affection.  As 
we  comprehend  more  of  His  mysterious, 
unchanging,  infinite  love,  and  enter  into 
the  mysteries  of  creation,  redemption 
and  providence  throughout  the  universe, 
our  adoration  will  constantly  increase. 
Here  is  one  quality  that  can  stand  the  test 
of  time  and  monotony.  We  never  weary  of 
a  true  mother's  devotion,  a  wife's  heart- 
companionship,  a  child's  embrace,  or  a 
friend's  congeniality.  He  who  has  tired  of 
love  and  its  possibilities,  has  wearied  only 
of  the  false,  not  of  the  true,  for  the  true  re- 
veals itself  by  its  insatiable  hunger,  devel- 
oping its  capacity  by  service. 

But  when  one  thus  claims  that  Love  will 
find  its  perfect  development  and  fulfill- 
ment hereafter,  many  subtle  questionings 
and  fears  arise  in  the  human  heart,  some  of 
which  although  somewhat  childish,  yet 
being  most  natural,  should  be  met  and 
answered.  The  greatest  fear  of  many  is 
that  the  change  of  death  will  be  so  great 

i78 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

that  we  will  not  remain  our  real  selves, 
that  our  identity  will  not  be  realistically 
preserved,  but  that  we  will  continue  in  such 
changed  conditions  as  to  result  in  our  being 
rather  half-natural  phantoms  than  natural 
individualities.  Yet,  just  as  in  the  case  of 
the  argument  for  the  preservation  of  per- 
sonality, we  see  that  the  course  of  evolution 
thus  far,  instead  of  blurring  or  merging 
identity,  has  on  the  contrary  striven  always 
towards  accentuating  and  preserving  it, 
pledging  thus  that  all  the  real  character- 
istics of  the  individual  will  be  zealously 
preserved.  And,  if  we  think  of  it,  each 
argument  for  immortality  implies  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  distinct  individualitv,  for 
otherwise  there  would  be  no  continuity  of 
self -consciousness  to  be  judged,  rewarded, 
punished,  or  to  receive  the  fulfillment  of  its 
possibilities. 

Another  fear,  closely  related  to  this  one, 
is  that  perhaps  the  transition  of  death  will 
be  like  drinking  of  the  fabled  stream  of 
Lethe,  whereby  the  curtain  of  oblivion  falls 
on  all  that  occurred  in  this  life,  leaving  us 
totally  ignorant  of  all  the  past,  to  commence 
the  spiritual  life  as  though  born  anew.  In 
this  case,  we  would  lose  all  friendships  as 

179 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

truly  as  one  loses  a  friend  here,  who,  by 
accident  or  disease  is  deprived  of  his  mem- 
ory, and  thereupon  fails  to  recognize  his  most 
intimate  soul  companion,  staring  at  his 
beloved  one  as  though  he  were  a  perfect 
stranger.  But  this  fear,  as  well,  is  ground- 
less, when  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  all  nature's  development.  Such  a 
violent  catastrophic  shock  is  out  of  all 
harmony  with  evolution's  quiet  consistent 
progress.  The  chief  moral  purpose  of  this 
life  would  be  defeated,  for  all  the  lessons 
received  from  life's  disciplines,  struggles, 
sufferings  would  have  disappeared  with 
memory's  loss.  All  the  highest  soul  aspi- 
rations that  constitute  one  of  our  principal 
hopes  for  the  life  to  come,  could  not  be  ful- 
filled, for  love  would  be  as  truly  lost  as 
though  it  existed  not,  were  there  no  re- 
membrance of  it.  It  is  true  that  soul 
affinities  could  again  find  each  other  by 
mutual  attraction,  but  this  would  be  a  color- 
less realization  in  comparison  to  all  the 
garnered  richness  of  mutual  hopes  and 
fears,  joys  and  sorrows,  successes  and  de- 
feats. JSor  would  such  a  loss  of  memory 
properly  fulfill  Heaven's  mission.  For  how 
could  justice  be  administered  hereafter  if 

1 80 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

the  mind  is  to  be  a  blank  as  to  the  past  ? 
Can  an  earthly  judge  properly  sentence  the 
paralytic  who  knows  absolutely  nothing  of 
what  has  occurred  ?  It  is  true  that  justice 
hereafter  might  be  partially  carried  out  by 
having  all  the  effects  of  our  earthly  life 
woven  into  the  tissue  of  our  spiritual  being 
that  we  carry  with  us,  but  this  would  be  far 
from  being  as  complete  as  the  self-conscious 
realization  of  the  past  and  its  results.  Thus 
both  penitence  and  joy  will  be  doubled  by 
memory's  retention  in  eternity,  as  our  own 
guilt  will  be  seen  more  clearly  in  retrospect, 
and  our  gratitude  be  redoubled  for  the  Love 
that  forgave  and  saved. 

But  still  demands  the  anxious  heart,  how  in 
this  vast  change  from  flesh  to  spirit,  shall  we 
be  able  to  know  our  beloved  ones  hereafter  ? 
May  we  not  lose  others  and  be  lost  our- 
selves in  the  countless  myriads  of  eternity  ? 
Yet  the  solution  here  is  most  simple.  Love 
can  never  truly  disguise  itself  from  love  on 
earth.  Spirit  responds  to  spirit,  instinct 
reveals  the  presence  of  true  affection,  and 
we  know  our  beloved  ones  even  here  almost 
more  by  their  spirits  than  by  their  bodies. 
"Identical  twins"  are  mistaken  for  each 
other  only  by  strangers ;  relatives  see  them 

181 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

distinct  and  different,  and  wonder  at  the 
confusion  of  others,  for  they  see  the  differ- 
ences of  spirit.  The  marvel,  then,  in  eter- 
nity is  not  how  we  can  know  one  another, 
but  how  we  could  fail  to  know  one  another. 
We  may  therefore  rest  sure  that  love  will 
always  find  its  own  by  instant  intuition, 
affinity,  sympathy,  soul  intimacy. 

But,  will  those  who  have  gone  before  us 
by  a  few  or  by  many  years  have  progressed 
beyond  our  reach  ?  Will  not  the  progress 
that  those  who  have  been  millenniums  in 
eternity  have  made,  separate  them  from  our 
beginning  ?  No  more  so  than  a  mother's 
culture  separates  her  from  her  babe's  heart 
here.  Does  not  such  culture,  on  the  con- 
trary, help  her  all  the  more  in  aiding  the 
child's  development  ? 

Yet,  once  more,  how  will  those  who  have 
experienced  two  or  more  devoted  affections, 
each  supreme  at  its  time,  reconcile  the  con- 
flicting claims  in  eternity  ?  Perfectly, — 
simply  because  there  will  be  no  conflict. 
Such  difficulties  of  thought  arise  from  our 
projecting  earth's  imperfect  love  to  heaven. 
All  the  narrow  prejudices  of  earthly  love 
will  have  changed  into  the  perfection  of  the 
divine,    with    no   diminution,   however,   of 

182 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

either  intensity  or  particularization,  but 
with  a  breadth  and  depth  that  reconciles 
all.  Just  as  the  parent  in  this  life  idolizes 
his  only  child  with  his  whole  affection,  and 
yet  finds  an  equal  affection  coming  with 
each  succeeding  child  as  it  is  born,  and  just 
as  he  does  not  divide  his  love  among  his 
children  but  gives  his  whole  heart  to  each 
and  yet  to  all,  so  will  our  natures  be  so 
enlarged  and  ennobled  as  to  hold  each 
with  increased  intensity,  yet  in  perfect 
harmony.  Nor  do  Christ's  words  about 
"  neither  marrying  nor  giving  in  marriage  " 
in  heaven,  imply  the  obliteration  of  all  past 
human  relationships ;  for  His  reference  was 
to  the  future  in  eternity,  not  to  the  con- 
tinuation of  ties  made  in  the  past  on  earth. 
The  survival  of  memory  with  personality 
necessarily  involves  the  remembrance  of 
those  precious  former  ties  of  sacred  rela- 
tionship in  all  their  spiritual  sweetness, 
only  transfigured  in  their  highest  possi- 
bilities. 

But, — asks  once  more  the  frank,  sincere 
inquirer, — how  can  there  be  perfect  love  in 
heaven  if  our  bitter,  deadly  enemies,  whom 
we  have  injured  or  who  have  injured  us 
irreparably  are  to  be  forgiven  and  be  in  the 

183 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

same  realm  ?  To  say  we  will  remain  for- 
ever separated  will  not  suffice,  as  there 
must  be  mutual,  perfect  heart-forgiveness  in 
perfect  love.  To  say  that  we  will  be 
changed  will  not  satisfy  fully,  for  if  truth 
and  sincerity  are  to  continue  as  foremost 
soul  qualities,  we  want  to  know  how  it  will 
be  possible  to  deliberately  love  those  we 
have  reason  to  hate.  Yet,  here  too,  the  an- 
swer is  simple  when  investigated.  The 
worst  on  earth  have  some  hidden  possibility 
of  goodness  that  is  often  revealed  at  un- 
conscious intervals  of  intimacy.  This  is 
how  certain  ones  can  love  each  other  when 
we  cannot  understand  how;  because  each 
has  seen  in  the  other  possibilities  of  good- 
ness, traits  of  disposition  that  are  closed  to 
our  unsympathetic  eyes.  Now  in  eternity 
this  rectified  spiritual  vision  will  enable  us 
to  see  this  hidden  potentiality  of  goodness, 
and  even  in  the  remembrance  of  past 
wrongs,  enable  us  who  have  so  much  our- 
selves to  be  forgiven  by  God,  to  sincerely 
forgive  others  and  be  forgiven  by  them, 
and  thus  truly  to  love  our  enemies. 

The  second  great  line  upon  which  con- 
tinual progress   will  be  made  is  that    of 

184 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

Knowledge.  Even  the  knowledge  that  we 
have  obtained  on  earth  must  help  us  as  to 
our  starting-point  in  eternity,  at  least  in 
giving  us  increased  capacity.  The  popular 
idea  that  all  will  know  all  truth  alike,  in- 
stantaneously at  death,  is  a  violent  contra- 
diction to  the  methods  of  the  universe,  and 
an  absurd  underestimate  of  the  extent  of 
all  truth.  To  think  that  the  African  pigmy, 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  animals, 
will  instantly  burst  into  the  same  mental 
grasp  and  horizon  as  that  of  Aristotle, 
Herschel,  Newton,  or  Shakespeare  at  death, 
is  contradictory  to  all  the  Creator's  adjust- 
ment of  truth  to  relative  capacity.  Nor 
can  countless  ages  exhaust  the  infinite 
depths  of  the  thought  and  works  of  the 
Creator.  Therefore  all  eternity  will  be  for 
us  a  gradual  growth  and  development  in 
knowledge.  The  joy  also  of  such  a  mental 
unfolding  is  unspeakable.  Even  here  there 
is  an  indescribable  ecstasy  that  the  scholar 
alone  knows  in  the  acquisition  of  new 
phases  of  truth,  in  the  discovery  of  new 
laws,  in  the  uncovering  of  nature's  possibili- 
ties, and  in  revealing  creation's  progressive 
development.  Scientists,  philosophers,  the- 
ologians have  all  understood  the  soul  joy  of 

185 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Kepler,  when  in  the  discovery  of  his  "  third 
law  "  he  exclaimed, — "  O  Almighty  God !  I 
think  Thy  thoughts  after  Thee ! "  Such 
joy  will  be  eternal,  and  can  never  become 
monotonous,  because  of  the  continual  variety 
of  the  birth  and  rebirth  of  the  infinite  com- 
binations of  God's  plans.  "  Canst  thou  by 
searching  find  out  God?  Canst  thou  find 
out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection  ?  "  Study- 
ing God  will  be  like  climbing  the  Andes, 
Alps  and  Himalaya  ranges,  each  peak  as- 
cended only  revealing  loftier  peaks  beyond 
and  wider  horizon;  or  like  studying  the 
heavens  with  increasing  power  of  vision, 
empty  spaces  proving  to  be  filled  with 
worlds,  single  stars  great  constellations, 
and  black  abysses  of  the  boundaries  of 
space  twinkling  with  system  after  system 
of  worlds  beckoning  one  on  to  greater 
marvels  beyond.  Adoration,  thus,  instead 
of  being  dreary  worship,  will  be  the  con- 
tinual instinctive  outburst  of  grateful  sur- 
prise as  we  continue  to  discern  deeper  and 
deeper  purposes  in  God's  dealings  with  His 
universe ;  for,  as  we  progress  in  knowledge 
and  see  more  clearly  the  vast  unfolding  of 
God's  plans  through  the  ages,  the  hidden 
harmonies  of  His  laws    and   actions,   the 

1 86 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

marvels  of  His  wisdom  and  love,  the  con- 
summation towards  which  all  is  trending, — 
we  cannot  but  adore  in  wonder  and  awe 
the  great  Source  of  it  all.  Even  as  Galileo 
cried  out, — "  Sun,  moon  and  stars  praise 
Him !  "  and  Agassiz  said  in  reverence, — 
"The  geologist  moves  along  paths  worn 
deeply  by  the  divine  footprints,"  and  New- 
ton cried, — "Glory  to  God  who  has  per- 
mitted me  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  skirts 
of  His  garments !  My  calculations  have 
encountered  the  march  of  the  stars !  " 

The  third  line  of  eternal  progress  will  be 
along  that  of  Service.  Surely  if  God  and 
creation  through  all  past  ages  have  found 
joy  in  activity  this  supreme  blessing  will 
not  be  denied  God's  creatures  hereafter. 

"  An  angel's  wing  would  droop  if  long  at 
rest, 
And    God    Himself,    inactive,   were    no 
longer  blest." 

For  there  is  no  keener  joy  than  the  accom- 
plishment of  great  tasks.  Bitterness  of 
labor  consists  only  in  physical  limitation 
and  in  incapacity.     These  being  removed, 

187 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

rest  will  consist  in  strength  being  greater 
than  the  work,  and  we  will  taste  the  de- 
light that  lies  in  successful  service.  Then, 
all  the  faculties  of  the  soul  will  be  gradually, 
progressively  unfolded,  continually  opening 
up  new  possibilities  in  enlarged  spheres. 
Even  here  we  have  all  longed  at  times  with 
Wordsworth  for  power  to  penetrate  and 
master  realms  beyond  the  limitations  of  our 
little  senses, — to  see  the  ocean's  depths,  the 
interior  of  worlds,  the  abysses  of  space,  to 
hear  finer  sounds,  to  have  keener  vision,  more 
piercing  instincts  such  as  even  some  ani- 
mals enjoy  to  a  superior  degree.  We  long 
to  look  through  the  phenomenon  of  nature, 
of  matter,  energy,  life,  to  perceive  the  hid- 
den marvels  of  new  worlds  of  form,  color, 
motion,  light,  melody,  beauty.  Just  as  to 
the  blind  man,  when  cured,  there  opens  up 
the  whole  world  of  form  and  color,  to  the 
deaf,  the  world  of  melody,  to  the  paralytic, 
the  world  of  touch,  so  through  all  eternity 
these  unfolding  and  developing  faculties 
will  open  up  new  worlds  of  possibilities  of 
insight  and  of  service.  This  is  why  such 
service  can  never  become  monotonous,  be- 
cause of  the  infinite  variety  of  tasks,  and 
because  of  the  capacity  thus  continually  ex- 

188 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

panding  and  developing  for  new  and  greater 
achievement.  Some  of  the  character  of  this 
service  we  can  infer  even  here.  In  general, 
it  must  consist  in  cooperation  with  God, — 
in  aiding  the  accomplishment  of  His  vast 
plans,  in  loving  ministrations  to  His  crea- 
tures, in  assisting  in  the  mutual  unfolding 
of  our  own  and  others'  possibilities,  conquer- 
ing all  enemies  with  love,  seeking  their 
penitence,  reconciliation  and  transforma- 
tion, and  in  assisting  perhaps  in  the  crea- 
tion, history  and  consummation  of  world 
after  world,  system  after  system,  cycle  after 
cycle,  universe  after  universe. 

Here  then  are  these  three  great  streamers 
of  light  that  this  first  fundamental  law  of 
nature, — Eternal  Progress, — throws  through 
the  darkness  ahead,  revealing  that  our  path- 
way through  eternity  will  be  in  the  lines  of 
continual  advancement,  growth,  develop- 
ment in  Love,  Knowledge,  and  Service. 
This  is  enough  upon  which  to  rest,  trusting 
explicit  details,  that  we  could  not  now  un- 
derstand, to  the  love  of  the  infinite  Father 
of  all. 

In  looking  back  over  the  whole  field  of 
science,  religion  and  philosophy  as  witnesses 

189 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

to  immortality,  the  thought  arises  that  it 
would  be  interesting,  at  least,  to  see  the 
comprehensive  conviction  of  some  one  man, 
who  combined  in  himself  all  three  of  these 
vast  realms,  being  an  eminent  scientist,  a 
consummate  philosopher,  and  a  profound 
theologian,  all  in  one,  and  from  this  three- 
fold outlook,  elaborating  his  vision  of  the 
soul.  In  searching  history,  to  our  surprise, 
we  find  such  an  intellectual  giant,  sepa- 
rated by  only  a  century  from  the  time  of 
some  of  the  Apostles.  Origen,  who  lived 
from  185  to  254  A.  d.,  one  of  the  greatest 
prodigies  of  the  human  race,  who  has  been 
called  the  second  Saint  Paul,  the  Herbert 
Spencer  of  generalization,  the  Schleier- 
macher  of  Greek  philosophy,  the  Father  of 
the  Church's  science,  stands  as  one  who 
combined  all  three  vast  departments  of 
human  thought,  the  first  great  scholar  to 
expound  the  reconciliation  of  science  with 
faith,  reason  with  revelation,  culture  with 
religion,  doing  more  than  any  other  one 
man  after  the  Apostles,  to  win  the  old 
world  to  the  Christian  religion.  Educated 
in  a  blending  of  all  three  branches  of 
thought,  in  the  highest  culture  of  Alex- 
andria where  Greek  science  and  philosophy 

190 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

and  oriental  religions  met  Christianity,  ap- 
propriating all  that  was  true  in  each  realm, 
this  astounding  genius  outleaped  them  all, 
and  grasped  a  sweep  of  thought  which,  in 
spite  of  many  errors  and  fallacies,  neverthe- 
less, as  a  whole,  for  comprehensive  logical 
coherence  has  seldom  been  equalled.  Con- 
sider the  marvel  of  a  scholar  less  than 
two  centuries  after  Christ,  being  persecuted 
for  rising  to  cosmological  and  universal 
speculations,  for  outlining  a  universe  con- 
sisting of  world  after  world,  system  after 
system,  forming  a  continual  ascent  through 
infinite  time  towards  the  final  restoration 
of  all  things.  And  even  to-day  Biblical 
criticism  is  but  emphasizing  Origen's  in- 
sistence that  the  Scriptures  should  be  spirit- 
ually and  at  times  allegorically  interpreted 
instead  of  literally,  knowing  that  "the 
letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life." 
His  reward  was  that  of  all  great  thinkers 
ahead  of  their  time, — poverty,  disgrace  and 
persecution.  As  a  return  for  his  herculean 
intellectual  achievements  of  six  thousand 
manuscripts,  of  his  travels,  sacrifices  and 
toils  up  to  nearly  three-score  and  ten  years 
of  age  whereby  he  won  the  surname  of 
"  Adamant,"  he  beheld  his  father's  martyr* 

191 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

dora,  was  later  himself  condemned  as  a 
heretic,  driven  from  his  country,  stripped 
of  his  sacred  office,  betrayed  by  friends,  ex- 
communicated from  a  part  of  the  Church, 
and  in  old  age  under  the  Decian  persecu- 
tions chained  in  a  dungeon,  tortured  on  a 
rack,  surviving  only  a  few  years  with  dis- 
located limbs,  anathematized  even  after 
death,  and  his  salvation  officially  denied. 

What,  then,  was  his  conception  of  the 
complete  history  of  the  soul?  According 
to  his  vision,  all  souls  are  kindred  in  essence 
to  God.  They  existed  with  Him  before 
time  in  the  depths  of  eternity.  The  high- 
est endowment  of  the  soul  is  freedom,  which 
therefore  involves  the  possibility  of  turning 
from  God.  Before  the  creation  of  this  ma- 
terial universe  a  host  of  spirits  turned  away 
from  the  eternal  goodness.  They  could 
neither  die  nor  be  forever  lost,  for  the  soul 
cannot  lose  its  true  nature,  nor  the  final 
purposes  of  God  be  foiled.  Therefore  it 
was  necessary  to  redeem  them  through  suf- 
fering. For  this  purpose  the  material  uni- 
verse was  created,  and  these  wayward  spirits 
were  sent  into  time  and  sense,  imprisoned  in 
bodies  in  a  world  of  matter,  with  all  their 
spiritual    qualities    aspiring    and     beating 

192 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

against  their  earthly  limitations.  Each  is 
assigned  to  the  place  according  to  its  needs 
of  divine  discipline.  Time,  experience, 
trials  gradually  discipline  the  wayward  will. 
By  virtue  of  its  inalienable  freedom  the  soul 
continues  to  fight  its  way  upward  aided  by 
the  means  of  grace.  After  leaving  this  tiny 
speck  of  dust,  that  we  call  the  earth,  the 
soul  continues  its  education  amid  the  whirl- 
ing millions  of  worlds  in  the  universe,  mount- 
ing from  world  to  world,  in  a  sublime  as- 
cending staircase  of  universe  after  universe, 
until  all  alienation  is  overcome,  all  obstinacy 
of  will  brought  into  loyalty,  the  will  now 
becoming  fixed  by  discipline,  the  communion 
with  God  becoming  perfect,  unchangeable, 
evil  itself  in  the  vast  cycle  of  ages  redeemed, 
and  God  forever  "  all  and  in  all."  His  sys- 
tem thus  unrolls  like  a  majestic  sublime 
drama.  We  start  with  the  immutability  of 
God,  and  the  indestructible  unity  of  God 
and  all  spiritual  essences;  behold  the  dis- 
loyalty of  spirits  in  their  inherent  necessity 
of  freedom ;  then,  the  creation  of  the  whole 
material  universe  as  a  loving  means  of  dis- 
cipline and  redemption ;  the  incarnation  of 
souls  in  flesh,  spirits  in  sense,  mind  in  mat- 
ter ;  then,  we  follow  the  era  of  discipline 

193 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

and  development ;  the  appearing  of  the  Lo- 
gos ;  His  teaching  and  death ;  the  impart- 
ing of  the  Spirit ;  the  evolution  of  the  race ; 
the  plurality  of  worlds;  the  continued 
ascent  through  infinite  time;  the  ultimate 
restoration  of  all  things,  death  and  the  uni- 
verse of  matter  being  thus  but  means  of 
loving  discipline  to  bring  back  discordant 
immortal  souls  into  perfect  established  har- 
mony with  their  Creator  forever. 

"We  may  not  accept  the  literal  details  of 
such  a  vast  scheme.  Origen  made  many 
mistakes  as  to  himself  and  truth.  But  such 
a  comprehensive  outline  stands  as  a  superb 
witness  as  to  how  a  prodigious  intellect 
looks  upon  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
when  he  views  it  from  the  combined  realms 
of  science,  philosophy  and  religion;  and 
perhaps,  we  may  find  that,  in  its  general 
conception,  the  scheme  is  not  so  far,  after 
all,  from  the  purpose  and  heart  of  the  God 
of  love. 

Only  recently  another  eminent  savant, 
who  has  covered  these  three  departments  of 
human  thought,  being  a  great  naturalist,  a 
philosopher  and  a  devout  Christian,  has 
propounded  another  comprehensive  theory 

194 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

of  man's  place  in  the  universe  that  has 
startled  the  world,  and  that,  in  spite  of  er- 
rors, has  at  least  placed  the  emphasis  on  the 
spiritual  purpose  of  creation,  and  the  pre- 
dominance of  soul  over  matter.  Dr.  Alfred 
Russel  Wallace,  who,  with  Herbert  Spencer, 
is  the  last  survivor  of  that  little  immortal 
group  of  scientific  workers  who  discovered 
and  elaborated  the  theory  of  evolution,  who 
was,  in  fact,  the  forerunner  of  Darwin,  sub- 
mitting a  treatise  on  development  bjr  natu- 
ral selection  that  precipitated  the  publica- 
tion of  Darwin's  "  Origin  of  Species,"  and 
whose  works  are  authorities  on  his  speciality, 
has  declared  that  astronomy  shows  from 
the  central  position  of  the  earth  and  from 
its  having  developed  humanity,  that  the 
whole  universe  was  made  for  man,  that  man 
is  the  soul  centre  of  creation,  his  soul  being 
the  supreme  and  sufficient  cause  for  the 
creation  of  the  entire  universe  of  matter. 
Worlds  at  the  circumference  of  this  disk- 
like universe,  by  collision  and  otherwise, 
escape  from  the  restraining  attractive  power 
of  their  neighbors,  and  wander  off  into 
outer  space,  becoming  soon  dead  and  lost. 
The  whole  margin,  therefore,  being  unstable 
and  liable  to  pass  out  and  be  dissipated,  is 

195 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

not  fitted  for  the  continuity  needed  for  the 
long  development  of  life ;  whereas  the  cen- 
tral position  furnishes  the  needed  security 
and  durability.  Therefore,  concludes  Dr. 
Wallace,  "  the  three  startling  facts  that  we 
are  in  the  centre  of  a  cluster  of  suns  and  that 
that  cluster  is  situated  not  only  precisely  in 
the  plane  of  the  Milky  Way,  but  also  cen- 
trally in  that  plane,  can  hardly  now  be 
looked  upon  as  chance  coincidences  without 
any  significance  in  relation  to  the  culminat- 
ing fact  that  the  planet  so  situated  has  de- 
veloped humanitjr.  Of  course,  the  relation 
here  pointed  out  may  be  a  true  relation  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  yet  have  arisen  as  the 
result  of  one  in  a  thousand  million  chances 
occurring  during  almost  infinite  time ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  those  thinkers  may  be 
right  who,  holding  that  the  universe  is  a 
manifestation  of  mind  and  that  the  orderly 
development  of  living  souls  supplies  an  ade- 
quate reason  why  such  a  universe  should 
have  been  called  into  existence,  believe  that 
we  ourselves  are  its  sole  and  sufficient  re- 
sult, and  that  nowhere  else  than  near  the 
central  position  in  the  universe  which  we  oc- 
cupy could  that  result  have  been  attained." 
Unfortunately,    as    in    the    instance    of 

196 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

Origin,  Dr.  Wallace's  general  conception  is 
true,  but  his  proofs  and  limitations  false. 
The  sun  with  its  earth  is  not  in  the  centre 
of  a  globular  star  cluster  for  the  distances 
of  the  thirty  known  scattered  stars  are  too 
enormous  to  admit  of  their  being  classified 
as  a  cluster,  many  of  them  being  not 
masses,  but,  like  the  constellation  of  Her- 
cules, composed  of  many  thousands  of  other 
stars.  Nor  are  we  in  the  exact  centre  of 
the  Milky  Way,  but  only  in  its  middle 
plane,  an  inhabitant  of  the  nearest  star, 
such  as  Alpha  Centauri  or  sixty-one  Cygni, 
having  an  equal  right  to  claim  the  centre, 
and  we  not  being  able  even  positively  to 
locate  the  centre  as  we  cannot  limit  the  cir- 
cumference of  the  universe  or  say  we  may 
not  with  increasing  vision  find  more  worlds 
beyond,  while  the  whole  sidereal  heavens 
viewed  by  billions  of  years  is  seen  not  to  be 
permanent  but  in  motion,  stupendous  con- 
stellations vanishing  and  being  replaced. 
Even  if  we  were  temporarily  in  the  centre, 
we  are  flying  along  at  the  rate  of  three 
hundred  million  miles  per  year,  so  that  in  a 
few  ages  hence  we  will  have  moved  out  of 
the  centre  and  other  stars  will  have  taken 
our  place.     If  our  sun  by  its  size  controlled 

197 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

the  encircling  universe,  its  physical  impor- 
tance would  seem  great ;  but  we  know  it  is 
but  a  third  rate  sun,  and  our  earth  an  in- 
significant ball  in  comparison  to  the  enor- 
mous worlds  and  systems  scattered  through 
almost  unimaginable  space, — Jupiter  being 
over  a  thousand  times  larger  than  our  earth, 
Arcturus,  Kegulus,  Antares  and  Gamma 
Cassiopeiae  a  thousand  times  greater  than 
the  sun,  while  Canopus,  Rigel  and  Alpha 
Cygni  are  said  to  equal  in  brilliancy  from 
ten  thousand  up  to  one  hundred  thousand 
of  our  suns.  To  say  that  God  has  left  silent 
and  dead  all  these  myriads  of  far  greater 
worlds  to  people  only  our  little  speck,  does 
not  enrich  our  conception  of  either  God  or 
man.  Man's  value  is  not  diminished  by  the 
existence  of  other  peoples  any  more  than 
one  race  here  is  injured  by  the  existence  of 
other  races.  Just  as  the  turning  on  of  a 
million  electric  lights  at  a  great  exposition 
glorifies  the  whole  scene  much  more  than 
the  lighting  of  a  small  cluster,  so  the  con- 
ception of  a  whole  universe  alive  seems 
more  glorious  to  God  and  man  than  a  uni- 
verse entirely  dead  except  on  one  small 
globe.  To  say  that  life  cannot  exist  on 
these  countless  other  spheres  is,  as  Flam- 

198 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

marion  says,  the  fish  declaring  that  nothing 
can  live  except  in  water,  especially  when 
we  find  among  them  every  conceivable 
variety  of  temperature  and  constitution. 
Science  cannot  affirm  that  life  exists,  neither 
can  it  deny.  It  is  not  probable  that  man 
could  live  on  any  other  globe  in  space,  but 
if  nature  crowds  every  crevice  of  this  earth 
with  teeming  life  suited  to  its  circum- 
stances, so  that  we  find  swarming  millions 
of  living  organisms  in  eternally  dark  cav- 
erns, in  oceans  depths  at  pressure  of  tons  to 
the  square  inch,  under  tropical  furnace  and 
in  polar  ice, — is  it  not  probable  that  she 
would  provide  life  suited  to  the  conditions 
of  these  countless  celestial  worlds,  rather 
than  leave  them  absolutely  barren  and 
dead  ?  "  Could  we,"  says  Sir  Eobert  S. 
Ball,  "  obtain  a  closer  view  of  some  of  the 
celestial  bodies,  we  should  probably  find 
that  they,  too,  teem  with  life,  but  with  life 
specially  adapted  to  the  environment.  .  .  . 
Intelligence  may  also  have  a  home  among 
those  spheres  no  less  than  on  the  earth." 

"  This  truth  within  thy  mind  rehearse, 
That  in  a  boundless  universe 
Is  boundless  better,  boundless  worse. 

199 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

Think  you  this  mould  of  hopes  and  fears 
Could  find  no  statelier  than  his  peers 
In  yonder  hundred  million  spheres  ?  " 

And  yet  the  main  idea  that  Dr.  "Wallace  is 
seeking  to  emphasize  is  true,  that  spirit  is 
greater  than  matter,  that  matter  was  created 
for  spirit  not  spirit  for  matter,  that  man 
himself  is  of  more  value  than  all  the  ma- 
terial universe.  When  one  first  receives  the 
awe-inspiring  revelation  of  the  stupendous 
extent  of  the  universe  in  time  and  space, 
and  learns  that  our  little  planet  is  but  as  a 
speck  in  infinite  azure  among  countless 
myriads  of  far  greater  worlds  and  systems, 
he  staggers  at  the  thought  that  the  Creator 
could  have  chosen  this  tiny  sphere  for  His 
tremendous  scheme  of  revelation,  incar- 
nation and  redemption.  The  very  mag- 
nitude of  the  work  seems  out  of  all  pro- 
portion for  such  a  microscopic  being  as  man 
on  such  a  microscopic  sphere  as  this  little 
eight-thousand-mile-diameter  earth.  It  is  to 
meet  this  that  Dr.  Wallace  has  tried  to  shut 
out  other  worlds  and  make  the  central  po- 
sition of  the  earth  prove  its  supreme  im- 
portance. But  the  true  method  is  first  to 
stop  and  estimate  the  true  value  of  man. 

200 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

Bigness  is  not  greatness.  The  size  of  a 
house  is  not  the  worth  of  its  tenant.  A 
packing  box  may  be  worthless,  but  the 
statue  within  priceless.  Man's  body  is  in- 
significant and  microscopic  when  measured 
against  the  immensity  of  the  universe,  but 
the  mind  and  soul  within  that  body  make 
man  greater  than  the  universe.  Just  as 
Shakespeare's  genius  was  greater  than  all 
the  splendors  of  Elizabeth's  royal  palace,  so 
is  man  greater  than  all  his  material  sur- 
roundings even  if  they  be  the  starry  universe. 
By  his  mind,  man  transcends  all  physical 
limitations,  conquers  within  and  without, 
places  all  things  under  his  feet,  flies  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  creation,  and  analyzes 
the  universe  and  its  elements. 

"  Man,"  says  Pascal,  "  is  but  a  reed,  and 
the  weakest  in  all  nature.  Yet  he  is  a  reed 
that  thinks.  The  whole  material  universe 
does  not  need  to  arm  itself  in  order  to  crush 
him.  A  vapor,  a  drop  of  water  is  enough 
to  destroy  him.  But  if  the  whole  universe 
of  matter  should  combine  to  crush  him,  man 
would  be  more  noble  than  that  which 
destroyed  him.  For  he  would  be  conscious 
that  he  was  dying,  while  of  the  advantage 
that    the  material   universe  had  obtained 

20 1 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

over  him,  that  universe  would  know  noth- 
ing." 

"  I  am  a  nobler  substance  than  the  stars, 
Or  are  they  better  since  they  are  bigger  ? 
I  have  a  will  and  faculties  of  choice, 
To  do  or  not  to  do :  and  reason  why 
I  do  or  not  do  this  :  the  stars  have  none. 
They  know  not  why  they  shine,  more  than 

this  taper, 
Nor  how  they  work,  nor  what." 

Add  to  man's  intellect,  his  crowning  en- 
dowment of  a  soul, — a  spirit  that  bears 
within  itself  its  own  witness  that  it  is 
created  in  God's  image,  with  a  certainty  of 
surviving  crumbling  systems  after  systems 
of  matter  however  vast  or  awe-inspiring. 
The  starry  heavens  are  not  as  sublime  as 
the  moral  law  within.  All  the  constellations 
do  not  equal  the  worth  of  one  living  babe. 
Man  is  God's  child,  and  therefore  more 
precious  to  the  Father's  heart  than  all  the 
glittering  splendor  of  the  universe,  and  no 
matter  how  small  the  island  on  which  he 
dwells,  or  how  weak  the  body  in  which  he 
lives,  he  is  still  the  beloved  son  unspeakably 
precious  to  the  Father's  heart.  The  cross 
forever    proves    this.      Calvary  stands    as 

202 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

God's  appraisement  of  man's  value.  Man 
is  worth  the  Divine  sacrifice  in  his  po- 
tentiality. Just  as  we  do  not  judge  the 
ugly  black  seed  by  its  appearance,  but  by  the 
gorgeous  flower  that  we  know  lies  enfolded 
within  it,  so  "  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
we  shall  be."  Therefore  the  old  version  of 
the  Bible  makes  a  mistake  in  both  language 
and  fact  when  it  translates, — "  Thou  hast 
made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels," 
and  the  revised  correctly  changes  it  to, — 
"  Thou  hast  made  him  but  little  lower  than 
God." 

This  is  the  first  true  method  of  steadying 
one's  faith  amid  the  immensity  of  the  uni- 
verse, to  realize  that  man's  mind  and  spirit 
are  greater  than  all  creation ;  and  the  next 
step  is,  not  to  try  to  shut  out,  as  Dr. 
Wallace  does,  all  other  worlds  to  magnify 
man's  importance,  but  rather  to  turn,  as 
Saint  Paul  does,  and  suggest  that  perhaps 
this  world  with  its  redemption  and  evolu- 
tion of  the  human  race  is  but  the  little 
stage  on  which  God  is  revealing  Himself  to 
the  myriads  of  other  worlds  in  space  that 
may  be  looking  on  in  awe,  wratching  the 
vast  drama  of  sin,  redemption  and  evolu- 
tion, while  the  cross  of  Christ  may  have  in- 

203 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

fluence  not  only  here  on  this  little  sphere 
but  carry  a  conservative  effect  throughout 
the  whole  moral  universe,  reaching  to 
worlds  far  distant  and  down  the  ages  to 
worlds  and  peoples  perhaps  as  yet  un- 
created. All  this  is  but  suggested  in  that 
mysterious  statement  of  Saint  Paul's  that 
Christ  by  His  cross  was  "  to  reconcile  all 
things  unto  Himself ;  by  Him,  I  say, 
whether  they  be  things  in  earth,  or  things 
in  heaven."  Such  a  vast  conception  of 
"  things  in  heaven,"  as  well  as  things  on 
this  earth  being  reconciled  by  the  cross  is 
far  more  inspiring  to  God  and  man  than 
the  attempt  to  limit  all  God's  plans  to  this 
little  sphere.  Instead  of  Christianity  seem- 
ing too  vast  for  this  earth,  it  would  thus  be 
seen  to  fill  the  whole  universe  of  God,  this 
earth  being  but  the  stage,  the  torch-holder 
from  which  its  influence  goes  forth  to  the 
extreme  limits  of  creation  and  down 
through  all  ages  of  time. 

Perhaps  then  these  other  worlds  are  peo- 
pled and  have  likewise  sinned  and  are  in 
varying  stages  of  development  and  evolution, 
and  Christ's  revelation  and  atonement  are  to 
be  imparted  to  them,  the  outstretched  Arms 
on  Calvary  drawing  not  only  hemispheres 

204 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

together  but  wandering  worlds  far  distant 
in  space.  Or  perhaps  this  world  is  the  only 
one  that  has  sinned,  and  the  other  ninety- 
and-nine  holy  ones  are  left  safe  in  their 
development,  looking  down  in  wonder  and 
awe  while  the  Great  Shepherd  of  the 
universe  comes  to  seek  and  save  the  little 
one  that  was  lost.  Perhaps  just  as  God 
chose  the  Jews  that  through  them  He 
might  educate  the  world,  so  He  is  choosing 
this  earth  that  through  it  He  may  educate 
the  universe  of  worlds  by  the  history  of 
man  on  this  planet  in  the  revelation  of  His 
own  character  and  vast  plans.  If  so,  the 
mystery  of  evil  is  still  further  enlightened. 
If  we  feel  it  may  be  wise  to  permit  evil  to 
exist  if  it  works  out  a  higher  good  only  on 
this  little  globe,  how  much  more  would  we 
feel  reconciled  to  its  existence  if  we  sus- 
pected that  its  permission,  here  may  possibly 
work  out  a  higher  good  to  the  whole  uni- 
verse of  God, — instructing,  restraining  and 
inspiring  thousands  of  worlds  throughout 
creation. 

Do  not,  then,  the  mere  hints  of  such  vast 
possibilities  of  God  and  His  universe,  to- 
gether with  the  cumulative  argument,  gath- 

205 


Immortality  a  Rational  Faith 

ered  through  the  realms  of  science,  philos- 
ophy  and  religion,  result  in  producing, 
through  a  rational  faith,  an  absolute  moral 
certainty  that  man  must  live  hereafter? 
If  so,  life  that  is  otherwise  hopeless,  hor- 
rible, unendurable,  becomes  instantly  trans- 
formed, irradiated,  profoundly  significant. 
All  that  lies  paralyzed  under  the  uncer- 
tainty of  future  existence,  rises  and  becomes 
inspiring  under  the  vista  of  eternity.  For 
both  a  sufficient  motive  and  an  interpreta- 
tion of  life  are  found.  It  is  worth  while 
striving  for  nobility  of  character,  for  char- 
acter moves  on  towards  destiny  and  is  to  be 
taken  with  us.  It  is  worth  while  to  live 
self-sacrificingly  instead  of  selfishly,  for  we 
are  immortals  working  among  immortals  to 
prepare  ourselves  and  others  for  eternity. 
It  is  worth  while  cultivating  the  intellect 
up  to  the  last, — for  artists  to  paint,  poets  to 
sing,  authors  to  write,  musicians  to  com- 
pose, scholars  to  search,  noble  souls  to  sow 
what  others  must  reap, — for  all  attainment 
is  to  be  conserved,  and  the  developed  talent 
and  capacity  to  open  up  richer  treasures  in 
eternity.  It  is  worth  while  to  love  deeply, 
devotedly,  passionately,  even  with  "death 
shadowing  us  and  ours,"  for  love  is  stronger 

206 


Conditions  of  Life  After  Death 

than  death,  and  love  will  find  its  complete 
fulfillment.  It  is  worth  while  to  take 
up  life,  with  all  its  sufferings  and  mys- 
teries, and  to  be  "steadfast,  unmovable, 
always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord," 
forasmuch  as  we  know  that  our  "labor  is 
not  in  vain." 


207 


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BERKELEY 


Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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